Misc Links 1/28/11

A Pound of Prevention Is Worth a Closer Look (NYT)
H. Gilbert Welch’s new book: Overdiagnosed: Making people sick in the pursuit of health. Prehypertension, a new disease, is an example of what Welch is talking about. The risks of harm from medication are high while the risks of harm from the disease is very low.

Life expectancy rising slowly in the US (New Scientist)
US life expectancy rising slower than expected due to smoking, obesity, and lack of exercise. Japanese live 5 years longer. European advantage is small, but widening.

Create a disease to market a new drug (KevinMD)
Excerpt from Carl Elliott’s “White Coat, Black Hat.” Pharma’s recipe for creating a new disease: Promote the idea that doctors take the disease seriously; claim the disease is more common than previously realized; tell the public there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Offshoring Science: The Promise and Perils of the Globalization of Clinical Trials (Hastings Center) (free registration required)
Review of When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects. Pharmaceutical research has come unhinged from the public good. Clinical trials are conducted on highly selective populations, treating made-up diseases. Drugs that are neither safe nor effective are approved and then sold to vast numbers of people, who become human guinea pigs testing the real safety and effectiveness of the drugs.

Bruised (Pulse)
We’re too embarrassed or too fearful to offer compassion to victims of family violence. A doctor’s story.

Problems with the connection between thimerosal and autism (KevinMD)
The move to eliminate thimerosal from vaccines was intended to calm fears and reassure the public while scientists looked further into the issue. But many people interpreted the move as an admission of guilt.

New Study Calls Into Doubt Value of Clinical Decision Support Systems (Medscape)
According to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, electronic health records that incorporate clinical decision support systems show no consistent association with quality of care, raising concerns about the benefits of this much touted technology.

Complete list of links

Image: Amazon