More from the 25th anniversary celebrations at Health Affairs. Health Affairs named Jack Wennberg as the most influential health policy researcher of the past 25 years.
Totally obvious choice, but nonetheless richly, richly deserved.
Above the Fold
Woodstock of the Wonks: The Health Policy Establishment Honors One of its Own – Michael L. Millenson
You might call it the Washington Woodstock of the Wonks.
Hundreds of members of the health policy establishment gathered in the nation’s capital last Thursday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the premier health policy journal, Health Affairs, and honor editor-in-chief John Iglehart on his retirement from the position he’s held since the journal’s founding. How a publication whose first issue is dated Winter, 1981 can celebrate a 25th anniversary on the eve of Winter, 2007 was a question that went unanswered. On the other hand, when’s the last time numbers coming out of Washington actually added up?
HEALTH 2.0 registration open
The Fall 2007 Health 2.0 User-Generated Healthcare Conference" is history, but we’re back! For 2008, Health 2.0 is going to be doing things a little bit differently. The annual conference will cover the waterfront in the development of Health 2.0. But we’re also going to be having other meetings aside from the main conference.
The first is our Spring Fling. Health 2.0 Connecting Consumers & Providers will be held on March 3-4, 2008 at the Westin San Diego. We will focus on consumers & providers using Health 2.0 tools and technologies. Come meet patients, consumers and providers up close, and see them
interact with the tools provided by leading Health 2.0 companies. And
come meet and network with the leaders in the Health 2.0 movement.Sign up today and qualify for early bird rates.
SEE ALSO: Health 2.0 revised FAQ Health 2.0 Research and Editorial Internships Health 2.0 Call for Speakers
PHARMA: Health Business Blog interviews Genentech about Avastin
This is a pretty good example of a smart consultant using his blog to explain something complex. David Williams at the Health Business Blog got an on the record interview from Genentech about Avastin and Lucentis. If you know the background story skip this and go to the Interview with Genentech about Avastin distribution changes.
If you haven’t been following at home here’s a quick synopsis (and I’m in a rush and doing this from memory so I hope I get it right—please comment if you know more!).
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POLICY: And a little more from Health Affairs
My favorite parts of the magazine are the book reviews and the letters. One book, the reviewer loves; another (with a different reviewer) not so much. Cue letters, is my guess. (Inside joke. I’m sorry)
Meanwhile, it’s about time Health Affairs made its charts a) more easily understandable, and b) ready for online publication. (This editions are not even readable in some cases). We’ve learned something about communication of complex data in the last 25 years and it’s about time the magazine that is the bible of health policy caught up.
POLICY: State-sponsored terrorism, courtesy of the DEA
This from a May 2001 discussion article in The Guardian about the new definition the Bush Administration introduced
Using the definition preferred by the state department, terrorism is: "Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant* targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience."
<SNIP>
The key point about terrorism, on which almost everyone agrees, is that it’s politically motivated.
Despite Californians voting for Prop 215 in 1996 and in every survey since clearly being in favor of medical marijuana, this is how the DEA treats those running dispensaries. It violently raids their homes with massive firepower, takes their money, assets and possessions, and destroys their families by taking away their children. And of course this is designed—for purely political purposes—to send a message to anyone wishing to protest the Federal government’s insane policies, or trying to help patients. Both of which are legal under state law.
If that’s not terrorism under the Administration’s definition, then I don’t know what is. When we get a change of Administration the DEA needs to be abolished. And we need, at the least, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission where those involved in its policies and actions can confess their sins. I have no idea how these people sleep at night.
BLOGS: HWR-The Anti-Halloween Edition
Joe Paduda calls this the best HWR ever. He might well be right—Hank Stern has done an incredible job doing an anti-Halloween edition of “it happened this day” and somehow making every entry relevant and funny.
Rush over to InsureBlog: HWR: The Anti-Halloween Edition.
Meanwhile, if you’re a subscriber, Health Affairs 25th Anniversary edition is a treat.
POLICY: Vic Fuchs speak–You listen
Just one article in a wonderful 25th Anniversary perspective for Health Affairs.
From the greatest health economist of them all, What Are The Prospects For Enduring Comprehensive Health Care Reform?.
POLICY: David Gratzer, source of Rudy misinformation
My, my. We can’t exactly be surprised that Rudy Giuliani is on the one hand telling yet more porky pies and on the other hand not contributing to the debate in health care—other than shouting “socialized medicine” as loudly as he can.
It’s interesting to note that Giuliani who’s playing a moderate has surrounded himself with some of the most extreme wingnuts in health care, including Sally Pipes and David Gratzer. (Full disclosure, I think David is a very nice guy, but I think he massively misrepresents the facts in his book—as we discussed when I interviewed him. Also Rudy does have Mark McClellan on the list, who’s not an extremist.)
But I can’t understand how Giuliani can possibly believe that surrounding himself with people who think that Medicare is evil socialized medicine (after all it’s single payer for seniors) is going to help him. After all Rudy will need all the moderate votes he can get if he’s around come November 2008.
But according to the Giuliani campaign Gratzer is “an expert at a highly respected think tank”. And Gratzer has the chutzpah to say that Commonwealth is biased! As if Manhattan has no views, and no opinions.
And of course the tosh about cancer survival rates has long been revealed to be crap by John Cohn & Ezra Klein based on Gerald Anderson’s work—differences in survival rats are all based on early screening and doesn’t show up in overall death rates. In other words there’s have a different denominator.
It is amusing that the Brits are now saying that their prostate survival rate is 74% not what Commonwealth reported a while back. But as I’ve explained at nauseum it’s all about picking your disease. If you want to pick a bunch of others, we do much much worse. And of course we’re paying way, way more.
But the real point is not that Giuliani is misrepresenting the cancer rates.
