Mocking the vanity, self-absorption, and stupidity of the rich and celebrities may be too feckless a sport. But the tragic spin-offs of the sweeping misinformation their hype mechanisms can generate sometimes just cannot be ignored. If you can take it, New York magazine has put out a detailed story on “The Wellness Epidemic,” a deep….
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Here’s why you’re getting those unsolicited mailings about clinical trials
When consumers around the country started getting letters from a company that they had never heard of, inviting them to participate in clinical trials for medical conditions that they hadn’t disclosed to many or didn’t even have, the alarms started to sound, quietly at first but with increasing urgency. Were doctors, hospitals, or other providers….
Continue ReadingThis mix of medical misconceptions can be harmful to your health
IN THIS ISSUE Excess medical screens: Big risks, big costs Will ‘DTC’ tests really make us healthier? Skeptical patient-consumers will be key to reversing over-screening An annual exam? Maybe not. A helpful number to assess medical tests & treatments BY THE NUMBERS $200 billion Estimated annual cost of over-screening, overtesting, and over-diagnosis in U.S. medical….
Continue ReadingSavvy health news consumers are seeing a run of whopper stories
Health news readers look out: media organizations seem to be struggling with an outbreak of the whoopsies—as in, “Whoopsie, if we had more sense, we wouldn’t have put out the story you just read.” The flare-up of embarrassing content, as chronicled well by the Healthnewsreview.org, a health information watchdog site, also seems to be a….
Continue ReadingDoctors urged to better inform patients on the pros and cons of their care
Modern medicine has become so complex, bureaucratic, and forbidding that it’s little wonder that patients—already ailing—don’t grasp the risks and consequences of treatments they prescribe. Overwhelmed patients also don’t demand that doctors fully brief them. And shame on physicians for failing to help patients more in this critical area of caregiving, two doctors have written….
Continue ReadingQuestions grow about rise in aggressive surgery for early breast cancer
It’s described as an “aggressive, costly, morbid, and burdensome” surgery that often lacks “compelling evidence” that it contributes to patients’ “survival advantage.” So why are increasing numbers of women deciding to have both their breasts removed when doctors detect early stage cancer in one breast? New research, based on a questionnaire and follow-up with more….
Continue ReadingGive a lasting holiday gift of health: Volunteer for a medical research study
IN THIS ISSUE Clinical trials can benefit volunteers Risks? Informed consent is critical How do I sign up? Improving a key componentof modern health care BY THE NUMBERS 10,000 Estimated number of diseases, for which experts say only 500 treatments or effective means of management currently exist. 231,169 Number of clinical studies now listed with….
Continue ReadingNovel therapies may be intriguing, but let’s be clear about their pros and cons
The news media enthusiasm for novel treatments, especially for cancer, has been on full display: Stat, the online health news site, has just written about one patient, a noted ophthalmologist, and how he had a favorable outcome with a lingering hospital acquired infection—not due to antibiotics but after treatment with viruses a researcher found in….
Continue ReadingMalone, Patrick: Cross-examination of a fetal maternal medicine expert, James Christmas, MD
Marissa Simpson, an infant, v. Roberts, Terry and Southwest Virginia Physicians for Women, Inc., Case No. CL04-213, Circuit Court for the City of Roanoke, Virginia, May 16, 2012 This was a malpractice case for a baby who suffered brain damage at birth from having lost a large portion of her blood in the hours preceding….
Continue ReadingWhat if 100,000 more lives each year could be saved from cancer? And at what risk?
If 100,000 more Americans could be saved from cancer each year, just how much leeway would the public give physicians in providing cutting-edge, promising care? That’s the intriguing premise of a New Yorker piece by noted writer Malcolm Gladwell, examining a new book by Vincent T. DeVita Jr., an eminent but controversial cancer clinician-researcher. The….
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