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COMMENTS: Back Cement is Useless
The fact that 40,000 medical procedures annually, each costing between $2,000 and $5,000, are useless would be news enough. CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook described the research in the New England Journal of Medicine into patients with chronic back pain. It found that vertebroplasty--strengthening bone fractures with cement injections--offered no more relief than a placebo treatment. "Vertebroplasty is endorsed by multiple medical societies," LaPook shrugged. Then the good doctor went further by pointing out that these are the "kind of savings" that Barack Obama seeks from healthcare reform. "Congress has earmarked $1bn to study the effectiveness of many different treatments."
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