FDA is warning that the blood pressure drug Olmesartan Medoxomil marketed as Benicar, Benicar HCT, Azor, Tribenzor, and generics can cause intestinal problems known as sprue-like enteropathy. Symptoms of sprue-like enteropathy include severe, chronic diarrhea with substantial weight loss. FDA has approved changes to the labels of these drugs to include this concern. Sprue-like enteropathy has not been detected with ARB drugs other than olmesartan
Month: July 2013
Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) – MayoClinic.com
Your Brand Follows the Work – Nilofer Merchant – HBR
Focus on the work. Your personal brand follows. Don’t let the goofy title dissuade you from clicking the link and reading the post. The author is thought provoking and absolutely spot on.
We talk about “reinventing your brand” when in reality the goal is to reinvent what you work on. We talk about the “brand called you” when we talk about being able to do more of the work you love to do. We talk about ways to “deliver on the impact equation” without asking first, “what is it you want to impact?” We are told by marketing gurus that “everyone now owns a media company!” — as if somehow this is, itself, the goal — rather than a means to an end. Marketing has become the default language — the lingua franca of the day — that we use to describe work, and it is distorting how we evaluate what matters.
What is it you care about? It takes courage to find and follow an individual path; finding our own path takes us off the path that others are following, in directions that can seem distinctly alone.
Employers May Reduce PT Hours – Insurance & Financial Advisor – IFAwebnews.com
Almost one in five large- and mid-sized U.S. companies plans to reduce the hours that part-time employees work in order to limit exposure to coverage mandates under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), according to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management.
Once employer mandates of the sweeping federal health reform laws begin going into effect in 2014, employers with at least 50 full-time workers (determined by ACA to be those working at least 30 hours per week) will be required to offer health benefit plans to 95% of qualifying employees or incur a $2,000 per employee tax penalty.
Two reports released by SHRM on the impending impact of the health care reform law indicate that 18% of companies with between 500 and 2,499 employees will reduce part-time schedules to less than 30 hours per week to mitigate costs related to the addition of new members to the plan. And approximately 19% of large firms with 2,500 to 24,999 employees plan to cut part-time employees’ hours.
On the other hand, the study found that smaller employers, those with fewer than 500 employees, were less likely to cut part-time employees’ hours. Just 5% of employers with fewer than 100 workers expect to reduce part-time hours.
Does anyone out there (besides me) believe company managements need to manage as if people mattered?
Vital Signs: Overdoses of Prescription Opioid Pain Relievers and Other Drugs Among Women — United States, 1999–2010
Between 1999 and 2010, OPR overdose deaths increased more than fivefold among women (a total of 47,935 OPR overdose deaths during that period).
This story was covered by all of the mainstream media outlets. Read the source article from MMWR to grasp the significance of this health issue. Scary stuff.
Cardiovascular Risk Factors in CKD Associate with Both ESRD and Mortality
Cardiovascular Risk Factors in CKD Associate with Both ESRD and Mortality.
Link above is to the JASN abstract. Link below is the AHA Life’s Simple 7 initiative.
New Tick-Borne Illness Discovered
Action Points
Researchers have discovered a new tick-borne illness, caused by Borrelia miyamotoi, whose symptoms are similar to that of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses, but that does not respond to conventional doxycycline in the same way.
Patients with the new illness, due to Borrelia miyamotoi, presented much like the others, with patients complaining of acute febrile illness, with myalgia, headache, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, and elevated hepatic aminotransferase levels.
lifeunderwriter.net 