Despite celebrity endorsements courtesy of Photoshop (above), and a real endorsement by eDrugSearch.com and others, Pfizer whistleblower Dr. Peter Rost came up short in his bid to become the next FDA commissioner. President Obama on Saturday announced the selection of Dr. Margaret Hamburg for the top food and [...]]]>

Despite celebrity endorsements courtesy of Photoshop (above), and a real endorsement by eDrugSearch.com and others, Pfizer whistleblower Dr. Peter Rost came up short in his bid to become the next FDA commissioner. President Obama on Saturday announced the selection of Dr. Margaret Hamburg for the top food and drug post.

We knew Peter was a longshot for the post, but what the heck — it was worth a shot.

The good news is that Dr. Hamburg will bring a passion for and history of reform to an agency that needs it desperately.

For Americans under 30, it might surprise you to know that the FDA has not always been a public laughingstock. In fact, in the 1970s, it earned a public confidence rating of 80 percent — among the highest of all government entities. That rating has now dropped to less than 40 percent, making it one of our least trusted federal agencies.

It’s not difficult to track this decline.

During the Reagan presidency, the FDA’s staff was slashed by 30 percent. It was cut even more in the ’90s, when Newt Gingrich led a pogrom against the agency, effectively arguing that private businesses could police themselves. This “starve the beast” mentality continued under George W. Bush. From 1994 to 2007, the agency staff was chopped from 9,167 to 7,856.

Ironically, the whole anti-FDA movement started with President Reagan’s claims that the agency was effectively “murdering” Americans by spending too long approving needed drugs.

Of course, cutting agency personnel by 30 percent doesn’t necessarily speed things along; it just spreads agency resources more thinly, so that more mistakes are made, the agency gets blamed, and more resources are cut to punish the agency as a result.

And so finally, the FDA reached a breaking point — and we’ve seen an across-the-board meltdown over the past few years, both with food safety and drug safety.

President Obama clearly wants to turn the ship around, back in the right direction. Here’s a brief video in which he outlines his plans for the FDA:

We announced today that the Healthcare 100 now includes more than 1,000 health and medical blogs submitted by bloggers worldwide.

For those of you not familiar with the Healthcare 100, it is a directory, search engine and ranking system designed to assist individuals who are seeking health information from [...]]]>

We announced today that the Healthcare 100 now includes more than 1,000 health and medical blogs submitted by bloggers worldwide.

For those of you not familiar with the Healthcare 100, it is a directory, search engine and ranking system designed to assist individuals who are seeking health information from blogs.

Since we started the Healthcare 100 in June 2007 with just over 100 blogs, hundreds of health and medical bloggers have submitted their blogs to our directory, turning it into one of the Web’s go-to resources for health-related content. Surpassing 1,000 member blogs is a milestone not just for us, but for the community of health bloggers.

One reason I created the Healthcare 100 was to help consumers gain confidence in the value and reliability of health and medical blogs. As old-timers like me may recall, health blogs were once viewed as questionable sources of information by many people. Health professionals and the media were skeptical, and consumers weren’t sure whether they could believe the health news and information they found.

By developing ‘power rankings’ that show the relative influence of a wide range of health blogs using data from Google, Yahoo, Technorati, Alexa and other sources, we created a tool that has helped consumers identify worthwhile content they can trust.

While attending the January health blogger summit at Consumer Reports, it really struck me just how far the health and medical blogosphere has come in less than two years.

The mainstream media has now fully embraced the health blogosphere, a fact that is evident in reviewing the Healthcare 100 today. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal currently manage two of the top blogs in our rankings. When we started the Healthcare 100, few traditional journalists could be found anywhere on the list.

What’s great about this, as demonstrated at the Consumer Reports summit, is that journalists and bloggers, including doctors, patient advocates and others, are now coming together at the same table to discuss the issues and challenges facing our healthcare system. That’s good for all of us.

Earlier this year, I was privileged to participate in a health blogger summit convened by Consumer Reports at its New York headquarters. One of the topics discussed at the event — in fact, the one that generated the most controversy — was online health ratings systems.

Many in attendance — including doctors and [...]]]>

Earlier this year, I was privileged to participate in a health blogger summit convened by Consumer Reports at its New York headquarters. One of the topics discussed at the event — in fact, the one that generated the most controversy — was online health ratings systems.

Many in attendance — including doctors and consumer advocates — were supportive of online ratings, particularly in helping patients find a doctor. But others, most notably Avery Comarow, editor of “America’s Best Hospitals” for U.S. News & World Report, dismissed Web ratings as dangerous popularity contests. Avery made the point that online physician ratings were biased toward negative reviews and had little objective medical basis.

I agree with Avery that doctor ratings sites are far from perfect. But frankly, to dismiss them out of hand is just silly — or at least unrealistic. People use them because, increasingly, people need them.

Years ago, most people found a physician by asking their neighbors and friends for recommendations – and they often stayed with their physician for many years. Today, because of health insurance plans, social mobility, and other factors, patients are seeking new methods for finding and vetting their doctors.

In addition to offering subjective reviews, physician-rating Web sites can help patients research whether a doctor is board-certified, their educational history, office hours, accepted insurance providers, and other information.

If you haven’t used a doctor ratings site before, here are a few that are worth checking out:

• AMA DoctorFinder
• RateMDs.com
• MDNationWide Physician Ratings
• Book Of Doctors
• HealthGrades.com
• Angie’s List > Health

Avery is right that patients who have had a bad experience are more likely to write about it on these sites than those who haven’t.

You should certainly keep this in mind, but I’m a firm believer in giving consumers as much information — and as many choices — as possible in making their healthcare decisions.

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