Health

Pew expert calls USDA’s approach to salmonella ‘wholly inadequate' Foster Farms, the nation’s sixth-biggest chicken producer, announced a voluntary recall of some chicken products July 3, 2014, as victims continue to be identified in a 16-month salmonella outbreak caused by poultry the company processed. Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, hospitals, manufacturers and patients have lacked the needed information to quickly identify problems with medical devices and quickly remove those products from the market. As a result, the FDA in 2013 issued final regulations that will require medical device labels to bear a distinctive code—called the unique device identifier, or UDI—to help... Read More

Medical device registries collect data on a group of patients treated with a particular device to assess the safety and effectiveness of the technology. Registries can be especially helpful in tracking experiences of broader patient populations over longer periods of time, in comparison to premarket clinical trials. For example, hip implants are expected to last for 15 to 20 years but typically... Read More

For patients in the United States with serious medical conditions, access to new medical technologies can mean the difference between life or death. Those patients rely on new devices—such as cardiac stents or prosthetic joints—to treat, cure, or diagnose debilitating or life-threatening conditions. Read More

Pew Latin American fellow Leandro Carreño has a long-term goal of improving the research landscape in his home country of Chile. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Steven Porcelli at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he is investigating the role that immune cells play in allergic diseases such as asthma. His work could lead to new treatments for the respiratory tract... Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, hospitals, manufacturers and patients have lacked the needed information to quickly identify problems with medical devices and quickly remove those products from the market. As a result, the FDA in 2013 issued final regulations that will require medical device labels to bear a distinctive code—called the unique device identifier, or UDI—to help... Read More

Medical device registries collect data on a group of patients treated with a particular device to assess the safety and effectiveness of the technology. Registries can be especially helpful in tracking experiences of broader patient populations over longer periods of time, in comparison to premarket clinical trials. For example, hip implants are expected to last for 15 to 20 years but typically... Read More

For patients in the United States with serious medical conditions, access to new medical technologies can mean the difference between life or death. Those patients rely on new devices—such as cardiac stents or prosthetic joints—to treat, cure, or diagnose debilitating or life-threatening conditions. Read More

A new federal law, the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, passed in 2013, will help protect patients by better securing our nation’s pharmaceutical supply chain. Read More

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology held a public meeting on April 4 to discuss the issue of antibiotic resistance. Senior director of drugs and medical devices Allan Coukell testified on the need to spur the development of new antibacterial drugs and to better collect data on antibiotic use both in both agriculture and humans. Read More

Pew expert calls USDA’s approach to salmonella ‘wholly inadequate' Foster Farms, the nation’s sixth-biggest chicken producer, announced a voluntary recall of some chicken products July 3, 2014, as victims continue to be identified in a 16-month salmonella outbreak caused by poultry the company processed. Read More

Susan McConnell, a 1989 Pew scholar and Susan B. Ford Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, is one of 15 U.S. scientists who were named 2014 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professors. Read More

The Pew Charitable Trusts announced the 2014 classes of biomedical scholars and Latin American fellows on June 24. In addition, Pew and the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust named the inaugural class of the Pew-Stewart Scholars for Cancer Research, a joint initiative that supports scientists whose work is aimed at finding cures for cancer. Read More

President Barack Obama hosted the first White House Maker Faire on June 18. Presenters demonstrated do-it-yourself techniques optimizing technologies such as 3-D printers. Among the invited “makers” was Manu Prakash, a 2013 Pew scholar and assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University. Read More

Ten researchers were named Pew Latin American Fellows in the Biomedical Sciences today by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Read More

Pew Latin American fellow Leandro Carreño has a long-term goal of improving the research landscape in his home country of Chile. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Steven Porcelli at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he is investigating the role that immune cells play in allergic diseases such as asthma. His work could lead to new treatments for the respiratory tract... Read More

Medicaid is the largest health insurance program in the United States, covering both acute and long-term care services for over 66 million low-income Americans—children and their parents, as well as elderly and disabled individuals. This report focuses on the impact of Medicaid on the states, including trends in spending and enrollment, and the anticipated effects of the Affordable Care Act. Read More

State spending for health care services varies widely by state. But the relationship between the services delivered and residents' health status—how "healthy" people are—is complex. The amount a state spends on such services is not necessarily correlated with better or worse health status. Read More

Tens of millions Americans lack access to regular dental care. To address barriers to care, the dental team has been expanded to include different types of providers in Minnesota, Alaska, and California. The concept is similar to using physician assistants and other practitioners in the medical field. These mid-level dental providers perform preventive and routine restorative care. In Alaska and... Read More

Christy Jo Fogarty, an advanced dental therapist at a non-profit clinic in Minnesota, describes working with patients and how she interacts with her supervising dentist. Read More