January 2014

FOB: Follow-on Biologics or Full of Baloney? By Leonard Zwelling        The two links below do a good job outlining the problem.        It will come as no shock to the oncologists out there that biologic agents like proteins and antibodies extracted from living systems like cells in culture are valuable agents in the treatment […]

Fixin’ By Leonard Zwelling        All my life I assumed that fixing was about repairing something that is broken. The chain on my bike came off; my Dad fixed it. I drove my electric train too fast around a bend in the track and it fell off the table my Dad had built for the

Mixed Emotions By Leonard Zwelling          It is difficult for me to think about MD Anderson. The difficulty stems from all the fond memories of the great people with whom I worked and who taught me so much juxtaposed with an absolute administrative mess that I see engulfing all the good like a rapacious black

WHY HEALTH CARE HAS TO BE A RIGHT I don’t think I could write a more damning piece than this one in today’s NY Times about for-profit hospital chains and the behaviors they incentivize and reward. No business interests should ever come between a doctor and his or her patients and this business arrangement in

Resentment By Leonard Zwelling “Resentment is when you take the poison and wait for the other guy to die”          This is a quote from Carrie Fisher from her one-woman show Wishful Drinking. I was fortunate enough to see it twice for Ms. Fisher is a singular force of Hollywood nature with a pedigree that

A Sad Joke: Did You Hear the One About the 5 White Guys That Walk Into an Executive Suite? By Leonard Zwelling          And you thought it couldn’t get any worse.          The Cancer Letter (January 17, 2014) reports that Dan Fontaine has done exactly what this blog predicted he would do only a few

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/health/patients-costs-skyrocket-specialists-incomes-soar.html?hp&_r=0 If you want to understand the lack of sympathy for doctors that so characterizes the health care reform debate, read this superb piece by Elisabeth Rosenthal from today’s NY Times. You think the government is out of control? So are we and the hospitals at which we work. Keep in mind, once you understand

Res-Hillience By Leonard Zwelling          Whether she runs for President or not, Hillary Clinton is surely the most significant female politician of the past 50, if not 100 years. But, she has had a bad week. The third week of the new year may go down as the week the 2016 Presidential election began because

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We’ll Cross That Bridge When We…oops! We’re There! By Leonard Zwelling          How many times have we seen this movie before?          Must I go through another session of disillusion with Chris Christie as the star in this reprise of “All the Governor’s Men”?  Here was a guy who I was sure would at least