Welcome to the latest edition of Investigative Roundup, highlighting some of the best research reporting in healthcare each week.
Quantifying the risk of death from alcohol
Increasingly, research favors drinking as little as possible, but the exact level of risk has not been clear, according to the New York Times.
A recent meta-analysis of 107 studies found that no amount of alcohol consumption improved health. It came after a scientist noticed that many alcohol studies had a fundamental flaw: they included former drinkers in their “teetotallers” group, who might have stopped drinking due to illness.
In comparison, moderate drinkers seemed healthier, according to the Times. The reevaluation found a statistically significant increase in all-cause mortality among women who drank fewer than two drinks a day and men who drank more than three. Another study found that even one or two drinks a day can shrink the brain.
So how should people think about their risk? Someone who has two drinks a week could save a week of life, and seven drinks a week could save 2.5 months, a researcher told the Times. But consuming five drinks a day can cost 2 years.
Researchers are careful not to overly correct past notions, but rather to emphasize that drinking is not beneficial. There is also an additional drawback: the risk of harming others while drinking, despite the connecting role it can play in society.
Confidentiality agreements routinely hide doctors’ errors
In medical malpractice cases, public hospitals, such as the University of Washington Medical Center, frequently use confidentiality agreements (NDAs) to keep injured patients and their families silent after a settlement. As a result, the doctors responsible for the harm can continue to practice unscathed, according to NBC News.
NDAs of this type typically stipulate that both the patient and the responsible entity will not discuss the details of the case publicly. As a spokesperson for the University of Washington said NBC News, “UW requests confidentiality to achieve finality and certainty when concluding a claim.” But as a public university, the University of Washington may still be forced to release information related to the case due to Freedom of Information Act requests from people like NBC reporters.
Lawyers often support NDAs as a standard part of medical malpractice cases, but patients are often unaware that they are not mandatory, and some argue that NDAs can mask patterns of harm, endangering future patients.
NBC uncovered a number of major settlements using confidentiality agreements. In one, a surgeon who operated on a young woman in need of a heart transplant allegedly gave her a stroke that led to her losing her sight using an unconventional technique, and tried to cover it up, even removing her from a heart transplant list. No enforcement action was taken against the doctor, who is now director of the cardiac division of a medical center and earns $400,000 more than he did in his last year at the University of Washington. NBC News reported.
Is the United States Prepared for a Human Avian Flu Pandemic?
H5N1 bird flu has not yet effectively spread from person to person, and symptoms among humans infected by cows have been mild. But scientists say it could only be a matter of time before the virus mutates enough to spread rapidly among people, according to the New York Times.
So far, the virus has been deadly to ferrets, cats, seal pups and other mammals. The appearance of the virus in cows was unexpected and, according to some experts, a sign that the virus is changing rapidly, according to the Times.
The United States has a stockpile of four types of flu antivirals, but they must be taken within 48 hours of symptoms. Its effectiveness against H5N1 in the future is unclear: some new versions of the virus have mutations that make it resistant to antivirals.
Hundreds of thousands of vaccines could be rolled out, with company contractors ready to produce 100 million doses in the first 130 days, but H5N1 could take many forms. Scientists have a library of 40 vaccine “candidate” viruses that match many of them, speeding up production of a new vaccine. But even in the quickest scenario, with a compatible candidate, only 1 in 5 Americans would be protected, Times reported.
Until now, officials have been hesitant to vaccinate cows because of concerns that trade in vaccinated animal products would be banned. There have been few efforts to vaccinate farmworkers because of the relatively low risk. But one expert told the Times A coinfection with H5N1 and seasonal flu could create a gene-swapped version of bird flu that is more efficient than any version so far.
