BLOGSCAN - Attention to Medtronic's Payments to Spine Surgeons in the Main Stream Media

On the HealthBeat blog, Maggie Mahar takes up the case of huge royalty and consulting payments to spine surgeons by medical device company Medtronic.  We had discussed the case recently here, followed by Howard Brody on the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog (see link in this post).  Ms Mahar was notably optimistic because of the continued attention to this case by the main stream media.  She argued that the increased emphasis on aspects of health care dysfunction shown by the media means "health care reform is moving ahead on the ground."  I hope she is right, but I would feel more hopeful if ill-informed, mission-hostile, self-interested, conflicted, and corrupt health care leadership was less anechoic, if health care dysfunction actually got some attention in the medical/ health care/ health services research/ health care policy literature , and if I could identify at least one prominent politician or policy-maker who talks about these issues.