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How laws prevent doctors from receiving perks off the books

Columns

DEAR DR. ROACH: Your recent column said that the “law” prohibits doctors from getting money from prescriptions. However, they get perks from pharma reps like dinner, golf, etc., and many push supplements on TV. Many “doctors” across the country make their income from prescribing supplements to patients for chronic fatigue syndrome or COVID. — D.K. ANSWER: There are statutes that prevent physicians from directly profiting from prescribing certain medications. The Stark Law prevents doctors from referring their patients to entities where the physician has a financial interest. ...

The sudden political star of Trump II: Marco Rubio

Columns

“White House deploys Marco Rubio to clarify messaging about Iran conflict.” So reads the headline on the front page of the Washington Examiner’s website in the early hours of April 1, the third month of U.S. military operations against Iran, which have been taking place since Feb. 28. That prominence was overtaken as it was announced that President Donald Trump would address the nation on the war on Wednesday night. But it’s still worth noting and could turn out to be more significant as the end of the second Trump term comes into view. Rubio’s video making the case for the ...

Dear Annie: Feeling lost in the pew

Columns

Dear Annie: My question is: Can I still keep going to my church or is it time to cut ties? This is complicated because my husband was a pastor, and I appreciated him greatly as a preacher. He took early retirement, but we stayed in the same town because I had a good job, and we needed my income and insurance until I could retire. Unfortunately, my husband — who was 15 years older than me — began developing dementia. We’d planned to move to the university town in our state where I attended college, and where three of our five children also graduated. One son and his family live ...

Hope for the dead

Columns

”That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) When American colonists were oppressed by British monarchs, the word most frequently uttered in pamphlets, editorials and sermons was not “safety” or “taxes”; it was “freedom.” Yet, two intolerable acts of Parliament so assaulted personal freedom that they broke the bonds with the mother country. The first was the Stamp Act of 1765, which required colonists to have government stamps on all ...

Antique Victorian eggs had a hidden purpose

Columns

A peep egg might sound like an Easter treat. As a white egg-shaped object, often painted with colorful decorations, like the two that sold together at Austin Auction Gallery for $215, it might look like one, too. Peep eggs are actually Victorian optical devices. At the time, advances in ...

Iran’s other enemies

Columns

It’s not just Israel. One of the least convincing arguments of opponents of the Iran war is that it is a conflict initiated by the Jewish state for its own benefit — the U.S. is just along for the ride. This view not only discounts the U.S. interest in defanging Iran, but neglects that there are other countries in the region besides Israel and Iran and that they, too, have a stake in the outcome of this war. If there’s anything that Iran has succeeded in doing over the first month of battle, it is further demonstrating the intolerable threat that it represents to the ...