Appeals Court: Malpractice Damage Caps Unconstitutional
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WH
The
2nd District Court of Appeal ruled against
Peace River Regional Medical Center in a lawsuit filed against the hospital and doctors by
Iala Suarez, who alleged that negligent care when she was pregnant led to her daughter being born with severe neurological injuries.
A jury awarded $5.25 million in non-economic damages to Suarez and her daughter, with the hospital responsible for a portion of that amount.
In Wednesday's ruling, written by Judge
Robert Morris and joined by judges
Patricia Kelly and
Nelly Khouzam, the panel said...that the limits were unconstitutional.
(
Editor's Note: The
FL Supreme Court in 2014 ruled that the caps were unconstitutional in a wrongful-death case involving a woman who died after giving birth in a Northwest Florida hospital. The current case involves a personal-injury claim, rather than a wrongful-death claim.)
WIM
According to
Matt Gracey, President,
Danna-Gracey:
This is significant but it will be appealed and the FL Supreme Court will rule on it as well. We expect with the current FSC composition all of the caps will be thrown out, further destabilizing the malpractice insurance market that is on the verge of seeing increasing pricing due to the increased claims activity and higher judgment amounts, combined with fierce competition among the insurance carriers.
(Editor's Note: FSC=Florida Supreme Court. The composition refers to the more liberal wing of the court, mostly Christ appointees, who have sided repeatedly with the plaintiff bar on the caps and lots of other rulings.)
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Statin Use Linked to Increased Parkinson's Risk
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WH
Nancy A. Melville, reporting for
Medscape (complimentary registration/log in required) on
October 26, 2016:
New findings from a large national claims database show the use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs to be associated with an increased risk for Parkinson's disease (PD), contrary to previous research suggesting the drugs have a protective effect for PD.
"We identified 20,000 Parkinson's disease patients and looked at whether using statins was associated with a higher or lower risk, and we found people using statins have a higher risk of the disease, so this is the opposite of what has been hypothesized," senior author
Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD, Vice Chair for Research at
Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania.
WIM
Once hailed as a miracle drug, some doctors even recommending the substance be added to drinking water, statins have increasingly been associated with various adverse effects including increased risk for type 2 diabetes, sexual dysfunction and muscle pain and weakness.
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The importance of a balanced ω-6 to ω-3 ratio in the prevention and management of obesity
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WH
In
an editorial appearing in the BMJ journal
Open Heart
10/25/16,
Artemis P. Simopoulos, MD, of the
Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health in Washington, D.C., and
James J. DiNicolantonio, PharmD, of
Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute and associate editor of the journal, said that "pro-inflammatory and thrombogenic" omega-6's have become far too prominent in the Western diet, at the expense of protective omega-3.
Nutrition policies based purely on the mismatch between 'calories in and energy out' in the belief that all calories are equal, have "failed miserably over the past 30 years," argue Drs. Simopoulos and DiNicolantonio. So much so, that 1.5 billion people around the globe are now overweight while 500 million are obese.
Major changes in food supply over the past century, as a result of technological advances and modern farming methods, have distorted the omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratio in the typical Western diet, which developing countries are now also increasingly adopting, say the authors. The production of vegetable oils high in omega 6, such as sunflower, safflower, and corn oils, has soared, while animal feeds have switched from grass, which contains omega 3, to grain, resulting in higher levels of omega 6 in meat, eggs, and dairy products.
This matters because while the body needs both types of fatty acid, human beings evolved to eat a diet containing equal amounts of omega 6 and omega 3 in it. But that dietary ratio is now a belt-busting 16:1, the authors contend.
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Florida Health Industry Week in Review is published every Monday by
FHIcommunications.
Each Monday morning we share the top healthcare headlines of the previous week and summarize
What Happened (WH) and
Why It Matters (WIM).
To learn how you can join our team of editorial contributors, contact
Jeffrey Herschler.
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