The widespread assumption that we should blame personal lifestyles for our health problems allows corporations and the governments who fail to regulate them off the hook. It’s not politically or economically comfortable to acknowledge the underlying causes of disease — poverty, inequality, air and water pollution, contaminated food, unsafe working conditions, an obesegenic environment — and take responsibility for them. Read more
Category Archives: Politics & Issues
Misc Links 1/31/11
Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, Japanese researchers say (Guardian)
Specially trained Labrador retrievers are nearly as good at identifying cancer as a conventional colonoscopy. Their sense of smell can pick up minute traces of chemicals circulating in the human body.
Florida judge rules against Obama’s health reform (Guardian)
Conservative judge in conservative part of conservative state ruled health care reform unconstitutional. He argued that, because the bill includes the requirement that everyone buy insurance, the whole bill is unconstitutional. “Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals,” he wrote. Read more
Fla judge rules against health care bill (& broccoli)
A conservative federal judge in a conservative area of the conservative state of Florida ruled today on the health care reform act. Not only did he rule that the individual mandate – the requirement that everyone have insurance – was unconstitutional, which was expected. He declared the entire bill unconstitutional. Read more
Misc Links 1/30/11
Back to the future—and to the drawing board (Lancet)
We live longer and can treat the diseases of old age. But this creates the potential for an economic catastrophe: ever-increasing demand met by ever-increasing supply. Review of 2030 – The Future of Medicine: Avoiding a Medical Meltdown
FDA regulation and non-approved use of drugs (KevinMD)
An intelligent argument from a doctor on why he prescribes off-label. The FDA’s policy is medicine’s equivalent of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and encourages doctors to be snitches.
Read more
Can better care for the neediest patients lower costs?
In yet another inspiring, beautifully written, and potentially influential New Yorker article, Atul Gawande tells the story of pilot projects by rogue doctors who reduce medical costs by attending to the sickest and neediest patients. … Brenner and his team are out there on the boulevards of Camden demonstrating the possibilities of a strange new approach to health care: to look for the most expensive patients in the system and then direct resources and brainpower toward helping them. Read more
Misc Links 1/29/11
TV reviews: Embarrassing Bodies and Head Over Heels in Rats (Guardian)
UK TV show “Embarrassing Bodies.” Why do people with really embarrassing medical problems want to share them with the world?
The Hot Spotters – Can we lower medical costs by giving the neediest patients better care? (New Yorker)
Another inspiring and potentially influential article by Atul Gawande. Pilot projects by rogue doctors reduce medical costs by attending to the sickest and neediest patients. Acknowledges forces of resistance from vested interests, politicians. Read more
Misc Links 1/27/11
Conscious During Cosmetic Surgery (Chronicle)
Latest cosmetic surgery trend: no general anesthesia. It’s cheaper. Patients are numbed, but pain is often excruciating and torturous. Surgeon: “It’s actually a lot of fun … like shopping for a new dress or a pair of shoes.”
Are Undergraduates Actually Learning Anything? (Chronicle)
More students are sent to college at increasingly higher costs, but for all too many the benefits — critical thinking, complex reasoning, written communication — are exceedingly small or nonexistent. Read more
Misc Links 1/25/11
A Visit to the Doctor (Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine)
A physician describes an office visit that illustrates all the things wrong with today’s medical care.
As Doctors Age, Worries About Their Ability Grow (NYT)
A third of US doctors are over 65 and not immune to dementia and other frailties of aging. Mortality rates in complicated operations are higher for surgeons age 60-plus. Read more
Misc Links 1/24/11
Glaxo Exec Concedes Drug Industry ‘Lost Its Way’ And Prescribes Changes (NPR)
A “competitive selling model” that works fine for autos or candy isn’t right for medicines that can save people’s lives.
Text of speech by Glaxo president Deirdre Connelly (NPR) (PDF)
“An industry that should be hailed as one of the greatest contributors to health in our society actually ranks among the lowest in public trust. … our industry lost its way.” Read more
Misc Links 1/23/11
A Short-Circuit to Distracted Driving (NYT)
Cell phone carriers to offer service that disables incoming calls while phone is in motion. “The lure of mobile devices has addictive properties, in that people feel an adrenaline burst when a call or text comes in and get a rush when they answer.”
Plastic surgery companies under fire for tempting people into unneeded surgery (Guardian)
“Companies see cosmetic surgery as a market to be exploited. … They’re recruiting patients as agents to sell the treatments for a commission to friends who might never before have considered surgery.” Surgery is just another commodity.
Read more
Misc Links 1/22/11
Why You Shouldn’t Snuggle with Your Pooch in Bed (Time)
More than half of all US pet owners sleep with their pets. Health risk is relatively small.
For Many Species, No Escape as Temperature Rises (NYT)
Over the next 100 years, 20 to 30 percent of species could be lost if the temperature rises between 3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. More than that and the loss could be 50 percent.
Read more
Misc Links 1/21/11
Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance – In 1798 (Forbes)
“The moral to the story is that the political right-wing has to stop pretending they have the blessings of the Founding Fathers as their excuse to oppose whatever this president has to offer.”
Newsflash: Founders favored “government run health care” (Wash Post)
History professor confirms: The founders of the Republic supported the basic idea of government run health care and the use of mandatory taxation to pay for it. How about that, Tea Party? Read more
Misc Links 1/20/11
Should obesity prevention be a personal matter? (KevinMD)
Why government policies focus on individual lifestyles as the source of obesity, rather than acknowledge the social, economic and political factors that create an obesogenic environment. Bravo!
Moving governmental policies beyond a focus on individual lifestyle: some insights from complexity and critical theories (Health Promotion International) (PDF)
Here’s the article on which the KevinMD post just referenced is based Read more
Andrew Wakfield: The integrity and validity of science
Doctors sign their names to papers that describe clinical trials of a drug. The papers turn out to be ghostwritten and paid for by the drug manufacturer. The pharmaceutical industry buries any study it doesn’t like, creating the impression that the majority of studies are favorable to what the industry wants us to believe. Journals are biased towards the publication of studies with positive results. All of these practices greatly skew doctors’ opinions of which drugs are effective and safe. Patients die needlessly as a result, and only then does the truth come out in whistle blower lawsuits. Read more
Misc Links 1/18/11
Use of antidepressant to treat hot flashes raises concern (Montreal Gazette)
“You’re looking at something that is actually a drug for a fairly serious psychiatric disorder that is being used for something that is a normal part of menopause.” It’s called medicalization.
The War on Logic (NYT)
Krugman on health care repeal: “The modern G.O.P. has been taken over by an ideology in which the suffering of the unfortunate isn’t a proper concern of government, and alleviating that suffering at taxpayer expense is immoral, never mind how little it costs.”
Read more
Misc Links 1/17/11
Rates of Suicidal Ideation Among US Surgeons ‘Very Concerning’ (Medscape Today)
1 in 16 (6%) had suicidal thoughts, but very few sought help. Rate substantially higher than general population in surgeons age 45 to 54. Study cites burnout, recent major medical error as risk factors.
British Researcher Wakefield Defends Link Between Vaccine and Autism (ABC News)
What’s interesting here is the second video that comes up, where Wakefield defends himself and accuses Brian Deer – the journalist who accuses him of fraud for financial gain — of using “selective information”
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?
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?
Read more
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
Read more
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?
Read more
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.
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
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
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