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Daily Rounds: MA Reform At 5; Moms Eat More; Hormone Confusion; Odd Surgery Semen Tale

5 years later, Romneycare still a bone of contention - BostonHerald.com
“We’re both a model, and a whipping boy or girl,” said Brandeis University national health policy professor Stuart Altman. “But I’d put the law at 85 to 90 percent successful. Obviously, nothing’s perfect in this world, but the basic reason for the reform was to extend coverage, and on this, we have done amazingly well.” Altman also said the law would work better if there were more primary-care physicians to provide more preventative care, and if federal aid for medical spending increased. But critics blasted the law for failing to curb the Bay State’s skyrocketing health-care costs. (Boston Herald)Study: New moms may let their health slip - CNN.com
New parents, particularly mothers, devote so much time and energy to their children that they often fail to adequately look after their own health, a new study in the journal Pediatrics suggests.The study, which followed about 1,500 high school students into their mid-20s, found that those who became parents got far less exercise than their childless peers.For moms, the news gets worse: Unlike fathers, mothers tended to have a higher body mass index (BMI) and less healthy diets than women of the same age without kids.The mothers in the study averaged about 400 calories more per day than other women. They also consumed more saturated fat, ate fewer green vegetables like broccoli and spinach, and drank nearly twice the amount of soda, sports drinks, and other sugary beverages.The researchers found no such differences among men. (CNN)The Women’s Health Initiative and the Body Politic - NYTimes.com
There is no question that scientists now have a far greater understanding of women’s health at midlife than they did before the study. It is, without question, risky for an older woman long past menopause to start hormone treatment to prevent chronic disease. Doing so dramatically increases the risk for heart attack, stroke, breast cancer and other complications. While that may seem obvious today, back in the 1980s and early 1990s, doctors prescribed hormones to women of all ages. “The W.H.I. has saved many lives,” said Dr. Susan Love, a longtime women’s health advocate and breast cancer researcher. “I think we should be celebrating the fact that we finally have research on women’s issues, an issue we fought hard for. The fact that the research results are not always clear is because our understanding of the biology and the science is not always clear. But the research is what gets us closer to the truth.” (nytimes.com)

Forget chocolate on Valentine’s Day, try semen, says Surgery News editor. Retraction, resignation follow « Retraction Watch
We have a bizarre tale to relate involving the journal Surgery News, which recently lost its editor-in-chief over a rather strange editorial he wrote in the February issue of the magazine. The ill-fated — and, we’ll stipulate, ill-advised — commentary has led to a de facto retraction of the entire publication — meaning that although no retraction notice exists that we’re aware of, neither does the issue exist in the publication’s archives. (retractionwatch.wordpress.com)

This program aired on April 11, 2011. The audio for this program is not available.

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