Howard Dean at Huff Post: The Far Right's All Out Offensive Against Medical Research

madfloridian

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Tue Feb-17-09 04:01 PM
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Howard Dean at Huff Post: The Far Right's All Out Offensive Against Medical Research

The Far Right's All Out Offensive Against Medical Research

He said he would be speaking out on health topics. Good to see it.

Opponents of fixing our broken health care system are at it again, attempting to use their same old scare tactics and falsehoods to kill a common-sense health care provision is the economic recovery package. Fortunately Congressional leaders have recognized these tactics for what they are and have wisely kept this provision in the legislation.

Under attack is a provision that is in the package that will help your doctor be better informed and more effective at the job they signed up to do in the first place - taking care of you and your family.

Comparative Effectiveness Research:

At issue is something called "Comparative Effectiveness Research" which basically means giving your doctor access to the latest research on what treatments and therapies work and which don't. This also helps doctors know which treatments are more expensive than others, and helps both patients and doctors decide if there is a cheaper treatment that is just as effective. As a doctor and the husband of a doctor, I know how important it is to have solid scientific research to make critical decisions for my patients.

I remember before our longtime family doctor retired, she said she envied my being computer literate...she thinks she would have been better informed than just relying on monthly magazines and her local community of doctors for the latest.

He continues.

If an inexpensive pill that has been around a long time works substantially better than a brand new, highly-advertised and thus far more expensive pill - doctors should have that information at hand when we prescribe medications to our patients. When I do something for a patient, I want the scientific research that tells me its the best course for my patient. But the far right, led by people like Rush Limbaugh, hopes to somehow convince Americans that more and better research is a bad thing.

Medicine is and should always be science based - not driven by ideology. Mr. Limbaugh and his cohorts would have you believe that this research will be used to deny needed care to your great Aunt May and be run by the politburo. But the Bill passed by Congress states right up front that the Government can not make coverage decisions based on this research.

Governor Dean will be going to the UK to speak at a convention of Liberal Democrats in March. He has also been working with a friend to set up a seminar at Yale.

Vetting for Yale seminar

Snigdha Sur/Staff Photographer
Howard Dean �71 and David Berg �71 GRD �72 hope to teach one of Yale�s competitive residential college seminars in the fall.

In Pierson College on Thursday night, Howard Dean �71 and David Berg �71 GRD �72 sat at a long table, answering questions about a residential college seminar they hope to co-teach in the fall. Dean, the former governor of Vermont and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Berg, a clinical psychiatry professor at the School of Medicine, were interviewed not by Yale College Dean Mary Miller or Provost Peter Salovey, but by Yale undergraduates, who sat listening around the table.

�Politics is the subject matter by which we get to talk about interpersonal relationships,� Dean said matter-of-factly to describe his and Berg�s proposed course, �Understanding Politics and Politicians,� which intends to examine the overlap between politics and psychology. More than 40 students, members of their residential colleges� seminar-selection committees, squeezed into the room to interview the pair of Yale alumni, who are both Pierson graduates and longtime friends.

�It�s not going to be the garden variety �Let�s bring a politician into Yale,� � Dean said of the seminar, eliciting laughter from the students when he added, �Do not expect Barack to show up here.�

..."The seminar �won�t be for the emotionally faint-hearted,� Dean cautioned. �If somebody�s not saying much, they�re going to be called on,� he said of his planned teaching style, which he said will stem not from the desire to intimidate but an interest in honest, open discourse.

In anticipation of the Berg and Dean interview, Dominguez conceded, �Nothing they could really say is going to convince us that it�s going to be bad.�