All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

For some, it's just what the doctor ordered. For others, today's decision to relax federal policy on medical marijuana sends the wrong message about illegal drugs.

While marijuana use for medical purposes is allowed in 14 states, it's illegal under federal law. So, over the years, the Bush Administration targeted clinics that dispensed the drug. Now, the Obama White House is telling federal prosecutors not to bother ... but this doesn't mean it's OK for people to smoke marijuana. Today's guidelines make it clear the federal government still forbids distribution for anything other than legitimate medical use under state law.

Studies have shown marijuana can ease the pain for patients with cancer, AIDS or other life threatening illnesses. Today's decision means they'll be able to manage their pain with a little less fear and a lot more compassion.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

There was a time in life when the only advice about alcohol you heeded was "beer before liquor, never sicker." But as you get older, you start paying attention to all those medical studies, and they are enough to make your head spin.

There's a new one, from Oxford University, that seems to contradict the notion that a glass of wine of day keeps the doctor away.

Researchers studied more than a million women and concluded that even moderate drinking can increase your risk of cancer.

These results come just weeks after another study determined resveratrol, a chemical found in red wine, can actually reduce cholesterol and is good for your heart.

So, which is it? Good for you, or bad?

It's important to stay informed, but in the end, you could do everything right and still not live to be a 100. Our destinies are sometimes determined by a genetic game of Russian roulette.

But the bottom line: Moderation. And make sensible choices.

I'll drink to that.

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Our sister blog, Political Hotsheet, is pointing to an item in the Washington Post reporting that President-elect Barack Obama will announce he is tapping CNN correspondent and CBS News contributor Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon, to be surgeon general. Could Dr. Gupta be heading to Washington? Brian Montopoli writes:

The Washington Post, citing two sources, is reporting that Obama has offered Gupta the job.

"Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way," reported the Post. "He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer."

CBS News can confirm through a source close to Dr. Gupta that the doctor was offered the position.

Read the full post and check out some of Gupta's work for CBS News here.

Could it be that Mom wasn't always right?

Two myth-busting pediatricians from Indiana University say some of her pearls of wisdom just don't hold up to science. For example, she probably always said to wear a hat because we lose 40 percent of our body heat through our heads, right?

Well, no.You'll lose just as much if you leave some other body part uncovered.Here's another one. Kids are more hyperactive after eating sugar. Well, actually, the researchers say a dozen different studies prove sugar makes no difference.

You've probably heard that you'll put on more weight eating late at night. Wrong again.
Studies conclude it's your total calorie intake that matters, not the timing. So much for all that butter at breakfast.

But whatever you do, just don't tell Mom she was wrong about all this. She wouldn't buy it – and besides – she'd just insist you put your hat on when you leave.

This week, the American Academy of Pediatricians recommended that some kids as young as 8 take drugs to fight high cholesterol. And suggested that we start checking cholesterol in toddlers as young as 2.

Americans seem to be looking for a quick fix for everything from brittle bones to anxiety, from sleeplessness to erectile dysfunction. And there's a drug - or drugs - for all of them.

Is it all a bit too much? Click on the monitor for more.

Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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I can only imagine that they tell themselves the cheap, illegally imported chemotherapy drugs are safe – that they're just as good as any of the more expensive versions that are sold legally in the United States.

That's the only thing that makes it even slightly comprehensible as to why trusted oncologists – cancer doctors – would opt to buy delicate, lifesaving I.V. chemotherapy drugs on-the-cheap from a source in which there's no way to know whether the medicine has been produced properly, transported properly or stored properly. Even if the drugs somehow could be guaranteed safe, the story is still shocking: Doctors aren't passing along the savings (for buying the cheap, imported drugs) to their ill patients. Instead, they're pocketing the profits.

Wyatt Andrews is a correspondent for CBS News based in Washington.

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Forget the actual cost of health care, for one moment, and focus on this question: why are hospital bills so buried in code, so averse to plain English? The simple answer is: hospital (and most doctors') bills are written in codes endorsed by the AMA (American Medical Association) and used by reimbursement specialists with the Federal Government and insurance companies. We the patients, simpletons that we are, aren't supposed to understand.

But it's deep within these overly complex codes that many experts believe mistakes get buried--and that most "mistakes" are usually overcharges.

One growth industry in America today is the rise of a specialty service whose practitioners are called "Billing Advocates." An advocate is trained to read a complex bill from the doctor or a hospital and find the errors. In our interview for tonight's CBS Evening News, Nora Johnson, a no-nonsense billing advocate from West Virginia says that of the thousands of medical bills she has reviewed for clients, maybe three have not had errors. To be clear, that's three clean bills out of several thousand. Nora showed me one bill with a $1,000 charge for giving a patient a toothbrush.

"Are these errors deliberate?" I ask. "I call it profitable error," she responds...

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