Years ago, Vermont guitarist Diana Levine lost her arm and her livelihood to gangrene after a health provider administered a nausea drug improperly.

Levine argued in state court that drug maker Wyeth should have affixed stronger warnings to the drug’s label.

Wyeth countered that the FDA approved the drug label and that should preempt state law.

The jury awarded Levine $7 million.

Wyeth appealed to the Supreme Court and last week, the Court ruled for Levine by a score of 6-3.

Writing for the majority, John Paul Stevens said that “Congress did not intend FDA oversight to be the exclusive means of ensuring drug safety and effectiveness.”

He added the FDA has “limited resources” with which to regulate the 11,000 or so drugs on the market.

“State tort suits…provide incentives for drug manufacturers to disclose safety risks promptly,” he added.

The decision amounted to a righteous whuppin’ for Big Pharma, which knew a positive ruling could short circuit a world of trouble in state courts where thousands of patients allege they have been harmed by more drugs than most can count.

In a conference call, Levine said the verdict brought her “unrestrained joy,” according to the Washington Post. “Next to getting my hand back, it’s the best they could do.”

Joining Stevens in support of Levine were Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and Clarence Thomas.

Samuel Alito dissented, saying the case, “illustrates that tragic facts make bad law. The court holds that a state tort jury, rather than the Food and Drug Administration, is ultimately responsible for regulating warning labels for prescription drugs.”

“And the FDA conveys its warnings with one voice, rather than whipsawing the medical community with 50 (or more) potentially conflicting ones.”

“After today’s ruling, parochialism may prevail,” Alito predicted.

Fifty-three percent of Americans reported cutting back on health care to save money in the past year, according to the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll. 

For 35% of them, this meant using home remedies and OTC drugs in lieu of a visit to the doctor.

The same percentage reported deferring dental care. Meanwhile, 21% said they chose not to fill a prescription, and 15% cut pills or skipped doses of prescription drugs.

The poll also revealed that 19% of respondents “experienced serious financial problems recently due to family medical bills.”

A shocking 13% indicate they’ve drawn down all or most of their savings paying off medical bills in the past year. The same number say health care bills make it hard to pay other bills. Twelve percent report being contacted by collection agencies.

Nearly 40% of respondents are very worried about their capacity to pay for needed health care, and that number bumps to 57% in the subset who think someone in the household might lose their job in the next 12 months.

A third of respondents with health coverage worry they will lose it.

“It’s clear that what the public wants most from health reform is relief from health care costs,” concluded Drew Altman, Kaiser’s President and CEO.

“Today’s economic anxieties have created a better starting point for health reform than we saw last time around,” he continued.

“More people see themselves benefiting from reform and fewer see themselves being negatively affected than we saw in the Clinton health reform debate.“

The Kaiser telephone interview survey was conducted from February 3-12 using a nationally representative sample of 1,204 adults.

Third graders that got 15 minutes or more of recess per day had better classroom behavior than those who were continually holed up in school, according to a study in Pediatrics.

To reach this conclusion, Romina Barros and colleagues from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine examined the records of 11,000 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999.

The scientists relied on teacher’s ratings of kids’ behavior.

Thirty percent of children in the study received no or minimal recess. These kids were more likely to be black, belong to a lower socioeconomic status, reside in the city and attend public school.

Even with these variables stewing in multivariate analysis, the beneficial association between recess and salutary classroom behavior remained significant.

Barros wants the word out. “Kids need that break because the brain needs that break,” she told the New York Times.

In fact, “recess should be part of the curriculum,” Barros emphasized. “You don’t punish a kid by having them miss math class, so kids shouldn’t be punished by not getting recess.”

Barros’ findings are consistent with recent studies of middle school students which revealed a direct relation between the number of fitness tests passed by children and their academic performance.

Another recent study of kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder showed that brief promenades improved attention and concentration as much as a slug of medication.

Scientists believe that people can concentrate on work, reading or exams for so only long before fatiguing.

Getting away from it all, even for short periods, appears to give aching brains time to reboot.