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Saturday, 28 May 2016

Princess Health and May 28th, 2016 Rest And More Rest. Princessiccia

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May 28th, 2016 Rest And More Rest

No alarm. No place to be, too early. I slept in like a champion. It felt really awesome. I did have some work to do today, and I did it all--then grabbed an early evening nap. Yep, rest and more rest. No weather coverage to worry about today---awe...fantastic!

I'm picking up Noah tomorrow afternoon and we're making our way to Stillwater to visit mom and make a trip to our family's little section of Sunset Memorial Gardens. We'll be remembering those we've lost--then, we'll enjoy a meal with mom.

My dinner tonight included wild caught salmon. Jon, a good friend of mine, told me about the difference between wild caught and farm raised salmon. The calorie difference is huge! Farm raised contains almost 50% more calories. I still invest the calories in the higher fat-higher calorie farm raised, most of the time--but since my local seafood counter is out of salmon and will be for a couple weeks, it was time to take the wild caught pink salmon out of the freezer. It was really good! It's a much leaner salmon. See the dinner Tweets below!







Click the poster image to enlarge!
Occasionally I'll mention the small, private and "exclusive weight loss teleconference support groups" I co-facilitate with Life Coach Gerri and Kathleen Miles. We're grateful for members from all over the United States, Canada and as far away as Australia! We limit the number of members to ten for each group--twenty total. We do have some spots available for the next eight week sessions. But before you decide whether or not to sign-up, you have a special opportunity to find out what it's all about!

We're presenting a very special one hour teleconference Wednesday night June 1st starting at 7pm Eastern, 6pm Central, 5pm Mountain and 4pm Pacific. You can be on the line--listen in and if you think this brand of accountability and support might work well for you, you can sign up for one of our next 8 week sessions! The new sessions start June 6th and 7th (links for registration in the next session will be made public on Monday).

To register for this free, special conference call "open house," simply click this link and fill out the form: http://totalkathy.com/?event=dont-diet-live-it When you do, you'll receive an email giving you the special call-in number and access code.

I hope you're having a fantastic holiday weekend!

I maintained the integrity of my maintenance calorie budget, I remained abstinent from refined sugar, I made a few good support connections, I prepared some great food, I exceeded my #watergoal by 40oz and I had a great workout late tonight. Time wise, thanks to my extra sleep, it was a slightly tilted Saturday--but a really good one.

Today's Live-Tweet Stream:













































Thank you for reading and your continued support,
Strength,
Sean
Princess Health and Pediatricians' national group calls for at least one nurse in every school; Ky.'s schools have a long way to go to meet that goal. Princessiccia

Princess Health and Pediatricians' national group calls for at least one nurse in every school; Ky.'s schools have a long way to go to meet that goal. Princessiccia

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By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Kentucky's high schools fall far short of new recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics that call for every school in the United States to have at least one nurse on site.

Only 42.2 percent of Kentucky's high schools have a full-time nurse, 37.4 percent have a part-time nurse and 20.4 percent do not have one at all, according to research led by Teena Darnell, assistant professor of nursing at Bellarmine University.

"School nurses improve school attendance and decrease the dropout rate which leads to better academic outcomes. . . . Most importantly, they help keep the nearly 680,000 children attending public school in Kentucky safe, healthy and ready to learn," Eva Stone and Mary Burch said in an e-mail to Kentucky Health News.

Stone, an advanced-practice registered nurse, is the director of student support services for Lincoln County Schools. Burch is the health coordinator for Erlanger-Elsmere Schools.

The pediatrics academy's policy statement, published in its journal Pediatrics, replaces a previous recommendation that districts have one nurse for every 750 healthy students, and one for every 225 students who need daily professional nursing assistance.

"The use of a ratio for workload determination in school nursing is inadequate to fill the increasingly complex health needs of students," says the policy statement.

School nurses today monitor more children with special needs, help with medical management in areas such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, life-threatening allergies, asthma and seizures and also provide immunizations, work on obesity prevention efforts and provide substance abuse assessments, among other things, says the statement.

As school nurses have been eliminated from school budgets, school-based health centers, which provide health care to students through a public-private partnership, have become popular. This model allows schools to bill private insurance or Medicaid for services to offset some of the costs.

Most recently, the Carter County Board of Education unanimously approved a one-year contract with Kings Daughters Medical Center of Ashland to provide its school health services, Joe Lewis reports for the Grayson Journal Times. The hospital will provide a nurse practitioner who will rotate throughout the district's schools.

That doesn't comply with the new guidelines to have one nurse in every school, but the program plans to use telemedicine to keep the nurse practitioner connected to the schools throughout the day.

"Unfortunately, Kentucky has no requirement to have a registered nurse in every school," Stone and Burch write. "Every school needs a nurse. What we see in the schools is a reflection of the health of the community. Kentucky is missing an incredible opportunity to not only keep children safe at school but also to implement a system of improving long term health in the commonwealth."

Friday, 27 May 2016

Princess Health and May 27th, 2016 Very Well. Princessiccia

Princess Health and May 27th, 2016 Very Well. Princessiccia

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May 27th, 2016 Very Well

Last night was pretty much a carbon copy of the night before. Shortly after posting last night's edition, I was off to the studio for severe weather coverage. This is part of my job duties. I'm also the morning personality--and when these two responsibilities collide, it makes for a really long next day. Once again, it was about three and a half hours sleep--and a big schedule today. I didn't realize how consuming today would become--but it's over now, and I made it through very well.

I did my morning show followed by production work, then a three hour location broadcast. I planned some good mid-morning food right before the 11am-2pm broadcast with the idea that it would carry me through to a later lunch. It did, very well.

I made it back to the studio and by 2:45, I was eating a late lunch and hoping to leave soon. Then, Mother Nature decided it was a great time for round three. At least today's rash of storms didn't wait until I was home and napping--nope. I barely finished lunch when the first storm warning was issued. I ran downstairs to the studio and started what I hoped would be a quick severe weather coverage. The more I studied the dry line and how it was set and moving east--and how slow the storms were moving, I quickly realized it was going to be a very very long day. I made it through, very well. 

The keys for me remaining consistent in the face of exhaustion and frustration started with making sure I had food in place. I packed and brought some extra things from work. If I hadn't done this--and I left my options thin, then I would have had to make some tougher decisions. When I'm tired is not the time to make food selection a difficult process. I simply make sure what I need is available. I made those choices really easy by making the options within reach.

I also reached out for spot support text exchanges with a few support friends. I did this, not because I was struggling--I really wasn't, I did it because sharing the circumstance and the challenge before it becomes a major issue, lessens its potential impact. We're not alone in this unless we isolate and make it that way. By sharing the potential struggle and my plan to overcome, I avoided the real struggle. It works, I promise you! Excellent accountability and support measures are powerful tools along this road.

I also enjoyed a good amount of coffee. That certainly helped in the energy department.

I left the studio at almost 9:30pm, completing a fifteen hour day on little sleep. My first thought was to dine out for the second night in a row. But the more I thought about it, the more I remembered some of the things in the fridge that needed cooked--and really, I keep it simple in the kitchen, so it's not like it would take me too long to prepare something nice. And honestly, I prefer the certainty of preparing my food with proper and precise weights and measures. Had I not dined out last night, I likely would have driven straight to Ground Round Grill and Bar and ordered something--but since I did--and considering the groceries needing cooked in my fridge--and how it wouldn't take forever to do it-- I made the decision to come home and cook. I'm glad I did. It was a very late and very delicious dinner.

The reward I get is hitting the pillow tonight knowing that I maintained the integrity of my maintenance calorie budget, I remained abstinent from refined sugar and I exceeded my water goal. I'm having mercy on myself in the workout department. Not that it's a major thing--but I do complete my short #morningdeal routine every single morning--but I really don't count that as a workout. I suppose my struggle over the past few days and this insane schedule--has been allowing myself to be okay without the trips to the gym. Instead of identifying places I could have squeezed it in, I'll focus on this weekend and the best times I will squeeze a great workout into my schedule.

I'm sleeping in tomorrow morning without an alarm. I'll be sleeping until I'm done sleeping.

Big thank yous to everyone expressing wonderful words to me about the interview on WPG-Atlantic City. Michelle Dawn Mooney's show was a wonderful experience. The audio link to the interview is posted within last night's edition.

If you're a touch curious why I put forth this level of effort in maintenance mode--I'll tell you why--Because if I didn't, I could--and would most likely return to over 500 pounds. The key for me--is making what I do and what I eat, enjoyable. Because when it's truly enjoyable, the effort is enthusiastically given instead of reluctantly approached with resentment and dread . It's not forced. It's natural. Developing and allowing our plan to evolve in harmony with where we are, today--gives us the best chance at amazing tomorrows.

Goodnight!

Today's Live-Tweet Stream:




































Thank you for reading and your continued support,
Strength,
Sean

Princess Health and Study says if Ky. cut its smoking rate to the national average, it could save $1.7 billion in health-care costs the very next year . Princessiccia

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Illustration from University of California-San Francisco
By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

If Kentucky could cut its smoking rate to the national average, it would save an estimated $1.7 billion on healthcare the following year, a study says.

Kentucky's smoking rate is 26 percent, and the national average is 18 percent.

The study at the University of California-San Francisco estimates that a 10 percent decline in the national rate would save $63 billion the next year in health-care costs.

"What it adds to our knowledge is that we can save money quickly," Ellen Hahn, University of Kentucky nursing professor and director of its smoke-free policy center, told Kentucky Health News. "We are not talking 18 to 20 years down the road. ... If we reduced our smoking rate at least 10 percent, we would see dramatic reductions in health-care cost in just one year."

The study also found that smoking makes Kentucky spend $399 more per person per year on health care than it would if the state's rate equaled the national rate. That was the highest figure of any state.

Conversely, low rates of smoking save Utah and California, respectively, $465 and $416 per person per year compared to what they would spend if their smoking rates were the national rate.

�Regions that have implemented public policies to reduce smoking have substantially lower medical costs,� the study's authors said in a news release. �Likewise, those that have failed to implement tobacco control policies have higher medical costs.�

Lexington's smoking rates dropped 32 percent in just one year after it enacted its smoking ban, which amounted to an estimated $21 million in smoking-related healthcare costs savings, according to a University of Kentucky study led by Hahn and published in the journal Preventive Medicine.

The UCSF study, published in PLOS Medicine, looked at health-care spending in each state and the District of Columbia from 1992 to 2009, and measured the year-to-year relationship between changes in smoking behavior and changes in medical costs.

Many studies have shown that smoking bans and other smoke-free policies decrease smoking rates, reduce smoking prevalence among workers and the general population, and keep youth from starting to smoke.

These have been some of the arguments for a statewide smoking ban, but efforts to pass one have stalled because new Republican Gov. Matt Bevin opposes a statewide ban and says smoke-free policies should be a local decision.

Bevin won big budget cuts from the legislature to set aside hundreds of millions of dollars for shoring up the state's pension systems, but the study hasn't made the administration look at a smoking ban as a source of savings. A ban passed the House last year but died in the Senate.

Asked how this study might affect the administration's position on a statewide smoking ban, Doug Hogan, acting communications director for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said in an e-mail, "Smoking bans are a local issue, rather than a one-size-fits-all solution." Bevin's office and Senate President Robert Stivers did not respond to requests for comment.

Hogan said the cabinet is committed to helping people quit smoking: "Education and proper policy incentives are critical tools that the state can use and as our commonwealth crafts its Medicaid wavier, it is looking very closely at ways to best incentivize smoking cessation to improve health and decrease cost to the commonwealth."

Dr. Ellen Hahn
Hahn said, "Kentucky has the dubious honor of leading the nation in cigarette smoking, and we have for many years. ... it is a major driver of health-care cost. And in a climate where we are trying to save every dollar ... I think that we should pay attention to this study because what it really says is that we can save a boatload of money if we help people quit and we can save it quickly."

Other possible tobacco-control measures include raising cigarette taxes, anti-smoking advertising campaigns and better access to smoking-cessation programs. Hahn said the state gets some money from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the tobacco master settlement agreement for prevention and cessation efforts, but the state needs to do more.

"We spend very little on the things that we know work, like helping people quit smoking, like doing widespread media campaigns on television, radio and print," she said. "We just don't do that in our state. We never have. In fact, we spend very little, about 8 percent of what the CDC say we should."

The study says significant health-care savings could occur so quickly because the risks for smoke-related diseases decreases rapidly once a smoker quits.

"For example, the risk of heart attack and stroke drop by approximately half in the first year after the smoker quits, and the risk of having a low-birth-weight infant due to smoking almost entirely disappears if a pregnant woman quits smoking during the first trimester," says the report.

"These findings show that state and national policies that reduce smoking not only will improve health, but can be a key part of health care cost containment even in the short run," co-author Stanton Glantz, director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, said in the release.

Hahn said, "People don't realize how effective quitting smoking really is, how much money it really saves. So that is the value of this paper. It is a wake-up call for those of us doing this tobacco control work and for elected officials who are trying to save money and redirect funds and shore up the economic health of Kentucky. ... Doing all we can to reduce smoking saves lives and money. What's better than that?"

Princess Health and Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky seeks nominations for seats on its board of directors and Community Advisory Committee. Princessiccia

Princess Health and Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky seeks nominations for seats on its board of directors and Community Advisory Committee. Princessiccia

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The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky is seeking nominations for two seats on its board of directors and three seats on its Community Advisory Committee, which drive the foundation's policy work and investments. Nominations are due July 22.

Board members represent the interests of Kentucky's medically under-served and include individuals working in health policy, health-care services and health-care finance. However, the board also seeks members who are not employed by health-care organizations and can provide varying perspectives.

The two board seats available are in Jefferson County and an at-large seat that can be filled by anyone in the state.

The Community Advisory Committee, which advises the board and appoints some of its members, is seeking new members from areas not represented: the Purchase, Buffalo Trace, Gateway, Fivco, Big Sandy and Cumberland Valley area development districts. The greater Lexington area is over-represented, the foundation says.

The committee is seeking two additional members who are executive directors or trustees of organizations working to address the unmet health care needs of Kentucky. It is also seeking members with expertise outside health care, such as in business, law and education.

"Service on the board or CAC is an opportunity to help improve the health of Kentucky through policy changes, grantmaking and other means, while creating lasting connections with other individuals who have different backgrounds but similar interests," the foundation said in a news release. "It is anticipated that the board and CAC will be developing a new strategic plan during 2017, making this a particularly exciting time to join. The Foundation has a highly skilled and dedicated staff to manage day-to-day activities, enabling the Board and CAC to focus on strategic direction and efforts to improve the Foundation's programs."

The full call for nominations and a nomination form can be found on the Foundation's website, http://healthy-ky.org/.

Thursday, 26 May 2016

Princess Health and May 26th, 2016 Days Like This. Princessiccia

Princess Health and May 26th, 2016 Days Like This. Princessiccia

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May 26th, 2016 Days Like This

The weather coverage kept me up last night until 1:30am at the studio--then home, posted a Tweets Only blog post--and finally was able to fall asleep a little after 2am. A colleague covered the 6am hour of my show, thank goodness. Today was rough and challenging.

On a day like this, I must embrace a higher self-awareness. I made sure I had food options in place and I especially made sure to engage in support communications. The storms held off this afternoon and that was a good thing. It gave me just enough time to get home and manage a nap before my commitment at the theatre. I did the opening audience welcome and announcements at a big concert tonight. I hated to miss 80% of it, but I had to go. The possibility of storms again tonight shaped my choices. And storms are headed toward us, again--so as soon as I post this, I'm out the door to cover more late night/early morning weather--and tomorrow will be similar to today as far as what I must do to remain in a positive mindset despite exhaustion. Good support and solid planning is critical on days like this.

Speaking of planning, Mary asked a good question on my Facebook page:
"Sean, I love that you keep it simple and smart!! Question...how far out in advance do you plan/prepare your meals, snacks, etc.?"  

My Reply:
Great question, Mary. To me, simple is sustainable. If I make it too complicated, I might not enjoy it as much! I'll evolve naturally at a nice measured pace!

Planning and preparing--very important topic, and it's different for each person. For me--I don't like pre-cooking--preparing meals "for the week." For some, that works very very well. I'm more of an in the moment person. It doesn't mean I don't plan. I do!

But my planning is this: I make sure I have several available options at home and at work. As long as I'm stocked with the foods I need and enjoy--I can make my decisions, even last minute, and be perfectly okay. Same planning with snacks-- I know what's available and I choose what I feel like having in the moment.

For example-- I honestly haven't a clue what I'm having for dinner tonight. I do know a few things-- I know I'll keep it in a nice dinner range of calories, whatever it is-- and I know I have some options-- Salmon, sirloin, asparagus--maybe I'll grab some other kind of veggie at the store...a sweet potato--oh, and I have some chicken breasts that need cooked--and frozen shrimp... Hmmm... Options! They're all waiting for me to decide--and I might make the decision right before cooking! If the day gets crazy--I might decide to skip cooking and grab something out-- I have another set of go-to options in that direction.

So--planning and preparing means different things for different people. The way I do it wouldn't work well for some. Now--I will add this: If I know I'm going to be out--and busy--and not near a kitchen to prepare something--I'll make sure to plan, prepare and pack (The three P's!) something for my man bag-- Usually it's what I call an "on-the-go meal" consisting of almonds, fruit and cheese...In fact, I'll likely being doing that very thing tomorrow midday. The central idea is to have what you need when and where you need it-- and then you can decide. Make sense? Thanks for the great question!

The interview from a couple of weeks ago on South Jersey's News/Talk WPG with Michelle Dawn Mooney was released today on Michelle's SoundCloud. It was a lengthy interview about this blog, the book and my overall story. I sincerely appreciated the opportunity to visit with Michelle on her show. It was wonderful! She's incredible. Here's the link to the interview audio, simply click the link below and press play:

https://soundcloud.com/middayswithmichelle/sean-a-addams-interview
It says "Sean A Addams" on the file-- but it's me!! Michelle had my name correct during the live on-air interview.

Okay--I'm letting the Tweets tell the rest of today's story. I'm headed to the studio!

Today's Live-Tweet Stream:
















































Thank you for reading and your continued support,
Strength,
Sean

Princess Health and Are You Ready for Some (Political) Football? - the NFL, Concussion Research, the NIH, and the Revolving Door. Princessiccia

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Probably because it involved the favorite American sport, the controversy about the risk of concussions to professional National Football League (NFL) players, and how the NFL has handled the issue is very well known.  A recent article in Stat, however, suggested that one less well known aspect of the story overlaps some issues to concern to Health Care Renewal.

Allegations that a Prominent Physician and NFL Official Tried to Influence the NIH Grant Review Process

The article began,

Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, president of Boston�s Brigham and Women�s Hospital [BWH] and one of the nation�s most prominent medical executives, was part of a National Football League effort to 'steer funding' for a landmark concussion study away from a group of respected brain researchers, according to a congressional committee report that was sharply critical of the league.

The report found that the NFL 'inappropriately attempted to influence' the National Institutes of Health�s [NIH] grant selection process.

Dr Nabel, in fact, not only runs the BWH, a renowned teaching hospital and major component of Partners Healthcare, but also serves as the "chief health and medical advisor" to the NFL. Anyone who has followed even a bit of the media coverage about the NFL and concussions affecting football players knows that the NFL could be negatively affected by any more research that associates playing professional football, concussions, and the adverse effects of concussions. 

The Stat article chronicled the intricate communications between Dr Nabel and the NIH as documented by a report from the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

 It cited a series of communications between NFL representatives, including Nabel, and officials of the NIH, and a foundation that accepts gifts from private donors to support NIH research. The discussions began after the NIH decided last year to award a $16 million grant to a research team led by Dr. Robert Stern of Boston University � but before the award was publicly announced.

The money for the grant was to come from a donation pledged by the NFL to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and league officials say they were concerned about aspects of Stern�s group and the proposed study.

Research by Stern�s team and BU colleagues has helped establish a link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, long-term brain damage that�s been observed in a growing number of athletes, including former NFL players, who suffered repeated head injuries.

The implication seems to be that this research group might be counted on to fearlessly pursue research even if the outcomes suggested that playing football might lead to adverse medical effects, which might not be so good for the NFL's interests.  So,

Nabel, who knows the NIH well from her 10 years working as a high-level manager in the agency, sent two emails to Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke [NINDS], according to the report. That�s the NIH branch that was awarding the grant.

In one email on June 23, 2015, she wrote, 'I am taking a neutral stance here,' while noting a concern about a potential conflict of interest: members of the NIH grant review panel had coauthored papers with two researchers that she had heard might be receiving the grant � Dr. Ann McKee and Dr. Robert Cantu of BU.

Later that day, she wrote Koroshetz that 'a Dr. Stern, who may also be with this group, has filed independent testimony in the NFL/Players Association settlement.'

Indeed, Stern was critical of how the settlement would be administered, pointing out flaws with the neuropsychological tests that the league proposed using to determine how to compensate injured players.


 Notwithstanding that Dr Nabel had an obvious conflict of interest herself: she worked for the NFL.  In any case,  

'I hope this group is able to approach their research in an unbiased manner,' Nabel�s email continued, the report says.

Nabel sent Stern�s testimony to Koroshetz, according to the report.

'My sole objective,' Nabel said in her statement, was to ask her former NIH colleagues to 'ensure there were no conflicts of interest among grant applicants.'

The NIH found no conflicts involving the grant review panel and stuck with its decision to award the grant to the Stern group. It ended up using internal funds, not the NFL money, to pay for the grant.

The NIH told STAT it agrees with the 'characterization of events in the report.'
An Affront to the Sanctity of the Grant Review Process?

Although Dr Nabel and the NFL asserted that they acted appropriately at all times, neither the committee staff nor one very prominent ethicist agreed,

The committee report said that Koroshetz disagreed ..., and said he was aware of no other instance where a donor raised objections to a grantee prior to the issuance of a notice of grant award.'

'The NFL�s characterization of the appropriateness of its actions suggests a lack of understanding of the importance of the NIH�s independent peer review process,' the committee report states.

Nabel�s spokeswoman said Koroshetz never told Nabel her actions were inappropriate. 'In fact, all of their interactions were very collegial and cordial,' she said.

I will interject that the question was not whether Dr Nabel was hostile or bullying, but was whether she tried to inappropriately influence the grant review process.  So also,

Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University, said Nabel�s actions, as described in the report, risk harming Nabel�s reputation and that of the Brigham. 'When she did anything to try to shape the selection of investigators or challenge the objectivity' of the grant selection process, he said, 'she had to know that that was 100 percent inappropriate, 100 percent unacceptable.'

Having served on numerous NIH and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) review committees (known as "study sections"),  let me add some context at this point.  Study section members must meet rigorous standards for freedom from conflicts of interest.  They also fiercely guard their independence.  The grant reviews they construct are supposed to be entirely about the scientific, clinical and public health merit of the proposals, and the scores they give proposals are the most important determinants of whether it gets funding.  Funding decisions are actually made by agency staff and advisory boards, but are supposed to depend only on the reviews and the general priority of the proposals' topics.  Nobody - I repeat, nobody - outside of this process is supposed to influence the funding decisions.

So the notion that big wigs from big outside organizations with vested interests in how a particular research project might turn out were communicating with top NIH officials about grant proposals, and that the officials allowed them to continue to communicate, and allowed even the chance they would be influenced by their communication strikes this old reviewer, to quote Dr Caplan, as "100 inappropriate, 100 percent unacceptable."

Did the Revolving Door Enable the Attempt to Influence NIH Grant Review?

Not directly discussed in the Stat article, however, was why Dr Koroshetz, director of NINDS, was willing to accept, if not agree with Dr Nabel's communications.  The article did note that Dr Nabel was a former "high-level manager" at the NIH.  In fact, according to her official Brigham and Womens' Hospital biography, Dr Nabel was director of the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute from 2005-2009.  She became CEO of the BWH in 2010.  Thus, she was a former top NIH leader who once held a rank commensurate with that held by Dr Koroshetz.

But wait, there is more.  Also according to her official BWH biography, Dr Nabel's husband is one  Gary Nabel, now the chief scientific officer at Sanofi.  Dr Gary Nabel, in turn, was Director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), another NIH institute, through 2012, but then according to Science, became chief scientific officer at Sanofi. So Dr Nabel's husband was also a high-ranking NIH leader, although apparently not as high-ranking as his spouse and the NINDS director with whom she communicated. 

Thus it appears that maybe Dr Nabel had outsized influence at the NIH and on the NINDS director because she was a former NHLBI director, and the spouse of a former high-ranking NIAID leader.  Her attempts to influence the NIH grant application process therefore appear to be a possible manifestation, albeit delayed, and partially at one spousal remove, of the revolving door pheonomenon.

We have noted that the revolving door is a species of conflict of interest. Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption.  As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.
  This case suggests how the revolving door may enable certain of those with private vested interests to have excess influence, way beyond that of ordinary citizens, on how the government works.

Worse, this case also suggests how it seems that the country is increasingly run by a cozy group of insiders with ties to both government and industry.  In fact, just a little more digging reveals that a key player in this case has even more ties to big private health care organizations.  According to ProPublica, in the last three months of 2014, Dr Elizabeth Nabel received $26,070 from Medtronic, mainly for food, travel and lodging, but which included $8572 for "promotional speaking/ other."  In 2015, she was appointed to the board of directors of Medtronic, despite not having previously owned any Medtronic stock, according to the company's 2015 proxy statement.  Also in 2015, she was appointed to the board of directors of Moderna Therapeutics.    Her husband, as noted above, now works as chief scientific officer for Sanofi.

So, as we have said before.... The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health.  Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders and their cronies that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large.

Video addendum: the beginning of "League of Denial" from PBS Frontline



ADDENDUM (29 May, 2016) - This post was republished on the Naked Capitalism blog.
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