Hot MedFax

I knew it!  I'm not nearing dementia with my inability to remember where my keys are or where I  left my glasses or OMG, I forgot to get Phillip! I just have too much stuff in my brain. Just as toddlers whose parents speak to them a lot tend to talk earlier because of all the words they hear (though I did get some pretty weird looks walking through Lord & Taylor and asking the infant Phillip what I should make for dinner), we folks of a certain age have our heads stuffed with all those words and the billion more of a lifetime. Where is the room in our heads for all those words? The NYT's Benedict Carey postulates that older minds may just be fuller minds. Carey attributes this idea to data mining, of all things.   Based on theories of information processing, researchers in Germany " used advanced learning models to search enormous databases of words and phrases," he writes.  " Since educated older people generally know more words than younger peop...

OK.  So we're used to companies we've bought from online selling what we buy, how much we spent and whether we return for more.  But guess what else now has a price on it?  Your medical data . With all the hoopla over HIPAA (you know, the mountain of forms you have to fill out and sign at the doctor's office after the new healthcare law), you'd think it'd be illegal. But it's not. According to a story at smartplanet.com,  "States ranging from Washington to New York are selling compiled records that can be used to link individuals to medical conditions. As records become digitized and hacking becomes more sophisticated, the risk to patient privacy rises." In Washington state alone, a database of 650,000 patients and their hospitalizations now are for sale to researchers, companies and the general public.  That means if you hurt your knee and must be hospitalized, you're likely to hear from knee and hip replacement device makers, home repair ou...