There is no justification for conflicts of interest in any business, but they’re particularly dangerous in medicine, where people’s lives are at stake. A recent airing of differences within the medical community about such conflicts hasn’t gotten much consumer play, but it should. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) recently published a series….
Continue ReadingArchives for June 2015
Recommendation for Female Libido Drug Gets Mixed Reviews
An FDA panel’s recommendation earlier this month for what’s known as the “female Viagra” is being hailed in some quarters, and criticized in others. The first group believes the drug addresses a long-overdue acknowledgment that women’s sexual health has been treated as secondary to men’s. The second group believes the drug’s benefits do not outweigh….
Continue ReadingNew Cancer Screening Guidelines
So many screening tests, so little time to make sense of them all, never mind the ability to pay for them, or figure out if your insurance does. The American College of Physicians has decided “enough” of this lunacy of over testing , and has issued new clinical guidelines for five common types of cancer…..
Continue ReadingDoctor Charged With Giving Patients Unapproved Cancer Drugs
Here’s a story you hope never happens to you or anyone you love: An oncologist in Florida has been accused of prescribing medication for her cancer patients that had not been approved by the FDA. The dicey treatments included chemotherapy, as reported by the Associated Press (AP). For six years, said federal health officials, patients….
Continue ReadingU.S. Mammogram Recommendations Reinforced by Global Studies
A couple of months ago, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) stirred the cancer screening pot with its opinion that mammograms are of limited use as cancer screenings for younger women and that, mostly, only women 50 and older should get them regularly. This month, its recommendation (in draft form) received support from the….
Continue ReadingFBI Investigates Power Morcellator Manufacturer
Last year, after a surgical device was determined to raise the risk of spreading aggressive forms of uterine cancer, one manufacturer recalled all of its power morcellators used to remove uterine fibroids. Now, it’s reported that the FBI has been investigating the company, Johnson & Johnson and its Ethicon subsidiary, over the timing of when….
Continue ReadingDebate Rages Over Value of Psyche Meds
Psychotropic drugs are powerful agents that address a variety of mental issues. And although they are lifesavers for some people, antidepressants, antipsychotics and other such meds remain the subject of debate among medical professionals, most recently within the pages of BMJ (British Medical Journal). Some people want antipsychotic meds to be heavily restricted, explained AboutLawsuits.com,….
Continue ReadingMelanoma Rates Are Way Up
Although we should protect ourselves against the harmful effects of the sun year round, it’s even more important now, under the more intense, longer hours of the summer sun. A lot of us don’t, as a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) attests. Between 1982 and 2011, rates of new….
Continue ReadingAn “Astroturf” Grassroots Campaign for a Female Viagra?
That’s what one drug industry skeptic is calling the successful effort last week to persuade an FDA advisory committee to reverse itself and recommend the agency approve a drug for “female hypoactive sexual desire disorder” called flibanserin. The objective evidence is that the drug, which has to be taken daily, is only a smidgeon more….
Continue ReadingNews Release About Grip Strength Fails to Grasp the Essentials
Again this week we turn to HealthNewsReview.org (HNR) to examine how well or poorly health science news has been communicated. This time, the study involved the association between the strength of someone’s grip and his or her risk for disease or death. The study appeared in the journal Lancet, whose promotional effort in the form….
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