The sudden exploding rate of “severe” psychiatric illness on campus is most likely caused by overdiagnosis. … [T]he milder forms of the depressive, anxiety, and attention deficit disorders … are difficult to distinguish from, the commonly encountered and expectable everyday aches, pains, sufferings, and performance problems that are an inherent part of college life. Not all difficulty is disorder. Read more
Category Archives: Health & Medicine
Misc Links 1/16/11
Degas and Renoir give masterclass on ageing (Guardian)
Negative perceptions of ageing and older people are being challenged through the works of famous artists. What a lovely idea
Furor about new breastfeeding study (Food Politics)
BMJ commentary and Guardian reporting (“Six months of breastmilk alone is too long and could harm babies, scientists now say”) creates uproar. Several BMJ authors consult for formula companies.
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Czech doctors resign in protest
The average monthly wage in Czechoslovakia is about $1200. Newly graduated doctors earn just over $866 a month. According to oncologist Peter Papp, whose salary has never broken the 20,000 koruna ($1,051) threshold, “My friends include a tinsmith, a cook. When we go out, they pay my bill. They say: ‘You are only a doctor.’ “ He earns 88 koruna an hour, or 2 koruna less than when he had a job labeling frozen chickens in his student days. Read more
Misc Links 1/15/11
The Age-Old Struggle against the Antivaccinationists (NEJM)
“[A]ntivaccinationists have done significant harm to the public health. … [S]ociety must recognize that science is not a democracy in which the side with the most votes or the loudest voices gets to decide what is right.”
In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom (WSJ)
WSJ’s reply to this debate: “The difference between … proud Chinese mothers and ambivalent Western ones—is that I felt guilty about having berated my daughter for failing to deliver the report card I expected.”
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The future of advertising unhealthy products
There’ll be many products we’ll be allowed to buy but not see advertised – the things the government will decide we shouldn’t be consuming because of their impact on healthcare costs or the environment but that they can’t muster the political will to ban outright. Read more
Misc Links 1/14/11
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior (WSJ)
“What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.”
Is Extreme Parenting Effective (NYT)
Response to WSJ article on superiority of strict Chinese mother parenting style. Does strict control of a child’s life lead to greater success or can it be counterproductive?
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The physical exam and society’s regard for physicians: A history
What’s not widely known, however, is that this is not the first time the physical exam has gone into decline. We know from surviving medical treatises that the exam was an integral part of a physician’s practice in ancient Greece and Rome. This continued to be true until the late Middle Ages (1300-1500). The hands-on exam then disappeared for hundreds of years, reemerging gradually in the late 18th century. Read more
Misc Links 1/13/11
GM chickens created that could prevent the spread of bird flu (Guardian)
Genetically modified chickens can still catch the flu, but their “decoy” molecules confuse the replication cycle of viruses. Technique could also be applied to pigs
Blogs encouraging suicides in the gay community (KevinMD)
Suicide is contagious among the young. Is the blogosphere contributing to and encouraging a recent suicide epidemic among young gays?
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Misc Links 1/12/11
America’s healthy debate on food (Guardian)
To some, vegetables are the new meat. The political right has responded with a kneejerk resentment response. Is this culture warrior overreach?
Teens Seek Plastic Surgery to Combat Bullying (ABC)
Botox injections at age 5 for droopy chin. “The problem is clearly with the phenomenon of bullying, and not with the person’s nose.” Amen
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Misc Links 1/11/11
BMJ Reveals Money Trail Behind MMR-Autism Claim (Medpage Today)
Second installment of Brian Deer’s investigation. Patent filings, startup companies, relationship with law firm – all before Wakefield published study. Investors promised millions
You Might Already Know This … (NYT)
Recent brouhaha over publication of study showing the existence of ESP. Does this support the claim that many published studies in science and medicine based on the widely used statistical technique of significance testing are worthless?
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Misc Links 1/10/11
Giffords Shooting: A Tragedy That Spotlights Two Important Issues (Health Beat)
Criticism of right-wing rhetoric will only meet with resistance. Better to focus on mental health and gun control
Tone versus Substance (American Scene)
We should object to Palin saying “death panels” will kill old people, not the use of “target” and cross-hairs Read more
Misc Links 1/9/11
Deadly Images (Slate)
Interview with author of “About To Die: How News Images Move the Public.” Images of the dead push viewers away, but news images of impending death are “effective.”
Where will new drugs come from? (Lancet)
Not from drug companies. Some suggestions on what can be done, but outlook is not good.
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Atypical antipsychotics: Overprescribed, not safer, not more effective
What needs to happen is for “consumers” of health care to take back their health and their lives. We are up against myriad financial interests that benefit from convincing us we’re not healthy enough and need more medical care and pharmaceutical drugs. I admit it’s an uphill struggle, but it’s worth the effort. Read more
Misc Links 1/8/11
On Insomnia (This Recording)
Insomnia infects your whole life. For an insomniac, there is no such thing as a good night. All it takes to become an insomniac is one bad night. Beautiful b/w photos
Is Eradicating Polio a Good Idea? (Project Syndicate)
It’s not clear that all polio cases can be detected, and chasing down the last cases is very costly. Better to be vigilant than complacent. By biotethicist Arthur Caplan
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Health care, climate change, and the myth of the free market
Even supposedly serious economists lend support to these views, arguing that the dysfunctional health-care industry is best left to its own devices. … This is what comes of forgetting the critical role that states have played in nurturing, protecting, and financing their industries, as well as in taxing and taming them. The greatest danger that Western prosperity now faces isn’t posed by any Beijing consensus; it’s posed by the myth of the free market. Read more
Misc Links 1/7/11
Is the food pyramid illegal? That’s what this lawsuit claims (LA Times)
A doctors’ group sues federal government to replace the food pyramid with a vegetarian alternative. Group supports animal rights
Calling the Health Bill a “Job-Killer” is “Inflammatory Rhetoric” (Health Beat)
Report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities refutes Republican claim
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Wakefield study of vaccine/autism link is a fraud
Is it possible that he was wrong, but not dishonest: that he was so incompetent that he was unable to fairly describe the project, or to report even one of the 12 children’s cases accurately? No. A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted: the discrepancies all led in one direction; misreporting was gross. Read more
Misc Links 1/6/11
When Insurers Put Profits Between Doctor and Patient (NYT)
Pauline Chen on Wendell Potter’s new book. The “question of conscience in a health care system dependent on for-profit insurers has lurked behind nearly every debate over health care reform.”
Cost of healthcare repeal put at $230 billion (LA Times)
May pose a challenge to Republican efforts to repeal. Boehner says he doesn’t believe the new estimate Read more
DSM-5: A “wholesale imperial medicalization of normality”
Frances accuses his psychiatry colleagues “not just of bad science but of bad faith, hubris, and blindness, of making diseases out of everyday suffering and, as a result, padding the bottom lines of drug companies.” Particularly objectionable to Frances was an emphasis on early intervention in childhood disorders by labeling – and medicating — children considered “at risk” for a disorder. As he wrote in an article for Psychiatric Times, the creation of “at risk” patients would cause a “wholesale imperial medicalization of normality” and “a bonanza for the pharmaceutical industry.” Read more
Misc Links 1/5/11
U.S. Alters Rule on Paying for End-of-Life Planning (NYT)
Provision attacked by health care opponents as sneaking “death panels” back into law. Withdrawn to allow more time for comment.
GOP Mistaken: Americans Don’t Want to Dismantle Obamacare (Gooznews)
One in four who oppose reform want it to be stronger, include public option Read more
Health care in America: You get what you deserve
More than most societies, Americans believe that people rise or fall as a result of their own efforts, and therefore get what they deserve. Critically, when we say this is a nation of individualists, we don’t just mean Americans embrace individualism as a social ethic. Underpinning this ethic is tendency to interpret the world in highly individualistic terms. We distribute blame and praise to individuals because we believe that it is their individual actions, for better or worse, that matter. People get what they deserve. Read more
Misc Links 1/3/11
GOP push for repeal of health reform: Is it politically wise? (Christian Science Monitor)
Push would repeat the sin of spending too much time on health care and makes revenge the first order of business
House Rule: Will John Boehner control the Tea Party Congress? (New Yorker)
To predict the fate of health care reform, it helps to understand Boehner. Excellent profile
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WikiLeaks and modern medicine
[The 1971 Supreme Court decision on the Pentagon Papers] established the principle that it was illegal to leak secrets, but not to publish leaks. … The legal bargain from 1971 simply does not and cannot produce the outcome it used to. This is one of the things freaking people in the US government out — not that the law has changed, but that the world has, and the industrial era law, applied to internet-era publishing, might allow for media outlets which exhibit no self-restraint around national sensitivities, because they are run by people without any loyalty to — or, more importantly, need of — national affiliation to do their jobs. Read more
Misc Links 1/2/11
Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness (Wired)
Lead editor of DSM-IV accused current DSM-5 editors of “bad faith, hubris, and blindness, of making diseases out of everyday suffering and, as a result, padding the bottom lines of drug companies.”
Medicare incentive aims to make patients’ end-of-life decisions clear (Pittsburgh Tribune)
It’s good to see this discussion happening, even if Arthur Caplan’s insights get “balanced” by a conservative viewpoint. “The fear is that our health care system is becoming increasingly money-driven and utilitarian.” That’s a fact. Read more
Misc Links 1/1/11
Doctors Urged to Admit Fatigue Before Performing Surgery (Businessweek)
Proposed new rules would require patient to sign consent when informed surgeon is sleep deprived
Some GOP stalwarts defend first lady’s anti-obesity campaign from Palin’s shots (Wash Post)
Mike Huckabee, Haley Barbour, Rick Santorum praise Michelle. Barack Obama: the issue “transcends politics” Read more
Old age and the limitations of a healthy lifestyle
Health is an ideology: a set of ideas that establishes goals, creates expectations, and determines our actions. An ideology provides a way to understand the world and ourselves. It’s only natural that we want to exert control over our health, our susceptibility to illness, the length of our lives. Our anxiety about health – amplified by constant discussion in all available media – makes us vulnerable to the latest promise of the rewards of a healthy lifestyle. The obsessive pursuit of health, however, is itself unhealthy. Read more
Misc Links 12/31/10
Real Life Among the Old Old (NYT)
To believe 90 is the new 50 is a fantasy that fails to distinguish between hope and reasonable expectation
FoodPolitics catches up: USDA’s meat labeling (Food Politics)
Meat producers greatly prefer that you remain ignorant of the amount of fat and calories meat contains Read more
Misc Links 12/30/10
Canada to put bigger health warnings on cigarettes (Reuters)
Will cover three quarters of front and back of cigarette pack. “Unduly” delayed by tobacco lobbying
Judge Rejects City Law on Antismoking Posters (NYT)
Gruesome images won’t be required in convenience stores in NY. Judge: “Even merchants of morbidity are entitled to the full protection of the law, for our sake as well as theirs.” Read more
Misc Links 12/29/10
‘Death panels’ alive — and that’s good news for all of us (MSNBC)
“If Terri Schiavo taught us anything … “ By noted bioethicist Arthur Caplan (12/29)
Health care economics and the relationship between doctor and patient (KevinMD)
What’s wrong with the way medicine is practiced? By a pediatrician who decided to quit her practice (12/29) Read more
Misc Links 12/28/10
So Young and So Many Pills (WSJ)
More than 25% of U.S. children and teens take prescription drugs on a regular basis. Most have not been tested on children. (12/28)
Osama bin Laden is dead (Wash Times)
Medical history of bin Ladan. Conclusion: It’s unlikely he’s still alive (12/28) Read more