Word: excesses
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Until recently, communities had been rounding up excess geese, then relocating them to less populated areas. But geese numbers have grown so large that no one will take more birds. So now - usually in June, when geese are molting and can't fly - birds in many areas are being captured and gassed with carbon dioxide. Also, at some airports, workers are being trained to use shotguns, in case birds get too close to active runways. "Shooting one or two birds prevents them from damaging the plane - and it sends a message to the rest of the flock," says Gosser...
...health-care spending is for unneeded and even dangerous treatments, the truth is that most doctors aren't purposely ordering up tests or treatments just for the cash. "The system is asking them to do what's right for a system that lives off of excess, as opposed to what's right for the patient," says De Brantes. See pictures from an X-ray studio...
Doctors are quick to say that much of the 30% of excess health-care spending is on "defensive medicine" - providing extra care in an effort to avoid malpractice liability - but De Brantes counters that the Prometheus model creates budgets based on clinical-practice guidelines that, if followed properly, help protect providers against malpractice claims...
...abuse can be, a separate study in the Lancet found that drinking caused more than half of the deaths among adult Russians between 1990 and 2001, in the unstable years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. That study of some 60,000 residents in three Russian cities found excess mortality (i.e., a larger than expected number of people dying from a certain disease) not only with obvious alcohol-related illnesses such as liver cancer but also tuberculosis and pneumonia, which the study's authors say may be partly a result of weak immunity caused by excessive alcohol consumption. (Read...
...psychosis are often just as effective as costlier brand-name alternatives; that stents can work miracles when inserted quickly after heart attacks but don't seem to help much as preventive measures; that the areas with the most hospital beds, imaging machines and specialists spend the most on excess hospital stays, MRIs and specialty care. But the big money in medical research goes to testing new drugs and cutting-edge technologies, not to comparing existing treatments. Drug companies often just have to prove that their products are better than placebos to get FDA approval; new devices merely have...