Medical Inspection – Health Blog

Speakers: Anders Bjorklund, MD, University of Lund, Sweden; Beverly Davidson, PhD, University of Iowa; Nicole Deglon, PhD, Atomic Energy Commission, Orsay, France; Patrick Aebischer, MD, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland; and Deniz Kirik, MD, PhD, University of Lund, Sweden
Techniques using stripped-down altered viruses (viral vectors) create improved animal models of disease and hold promise [...]

Speakers: Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Zheng-Xiong Xi, MD, PhD, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, Maryland; Abraham Zangen, PhD, Weizmann Institute for Science, Rehovot, Israel; Matt W. Feltenstein, PhD, Department of Physiology & Neurosciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston; and Fanny F. Botreau, PhD, Concordia University, Montreal, [...]

Speakers: Gail V. W. Johnson, PhD, University of Alabama; Eva-Maria Mandelkow, MD, PhD, Max Planck, Germany; Frank M. LaFerla, PhD, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior; University of California, Irvine; and Virginia M.-Y. Lee, PhD, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
New studies are elucidating the role of the protein tau in Alzheimer’s [...]

New Clues to Autism
Speakers: Daniel H. Geschwind, MD, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles; Eric Peterson, PhD, University of Colorado; Brendon Nacewicz, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Aysenil Belger, PhD, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and James S. Sutcliffe, PhD, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

Responsibility for fraud prevention belongs to everyone, especially health care professionals who care for the frail elderly. These professionals are the first people to whom their older patients turn for advice. For this reason, health care providers need to recognize fraud and should advise their patients appropriately.

Now that the federal gover nment is paying a significant portion of prescription drug expenses for the elderly, it is considered fraudulent for pharmaceutical companies to use incentives to encourage the use of expensive branded products. Attention is being focused on pharmaceutical patient assistance programs (PAPs) and pharmacy rebates.

Unfortunately, Medicare beneficiaries and the PDPs that serve them are not the only ones who might be benefiting from the $740 billion expansion of the Medicare program. Medicare fraud involves cheating either the federal government or the beneficiaries. Perhaps the worst form of fraud affects these frail elders, who can hardly afford to be cheated. [...]