HEALTH CARE

Quacks Boost U.S. Medical Bill: Quackery adds $30 billion a year to America’s health care bill, and California suffers some of the most rampant abuses, experts told a congressional subcommittee. Sales of useless medical devices and pills has risen from $10 billion in 1984 to $30 billion last year, said Dr. John Renner, a professor of medicine who is also president of the nonprofit Consumer Health Information Research Institute in Kansas City, Mo. Families of patients--including a woman whose mother died of cancer after a quack said he could cure her breast cancer by attaching electrodes to her body--testified that charlatans prey particularly on the elderly. Food and Drug Administration officials testifying said people who suspect questionable medical practices should call their fraud hot line at (800) 238-7332.