Yearly Archives: 2011

Misc Links 1/17/11

Posted by on @

Surgeons at work suicideRates 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”

Read more

Share

Mental illness in college students: Overdiagnosed

Posted by on @

Mental health college students overdiagnosisThe 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

Share

Misc Links 1/16/11

Posted by on @

Degas Ballet dancers and Perceptions of ageingDegas 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.
Read more

Share

Czech doctors resign in protest

Posted by on @

Czech doctors protest resignThe 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

Share

Misc Links 1/15/11

Posted by on @

Antivaccinationists too many too soonThe 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.”
Read more

Share

Misc Links 1/14/11

Posted by on @

Chinese mother with musically gifted childrenWhy 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

Share

The physical exam and society’s regard for physicians: A history

Posted by on @

Laennec examines patient with stethoscopeWhat’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

Share

Misc Links 1/13/11

Posted by on @

Genetically modified crooster can't get fluGM 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

Share

Misc Links 1/12/11

Posted by on @

Healthy food debateAmerica’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

Share

Misc Links 1/11/11

Posted by on @

Children innoculated against MMRBMJ 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

Share

Atypical antipsychotics: Overprescribed, not safer, not more effective

Posted by on @

Atypical antipsychoticsWhat 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

Share

Misc Links 1/8/11

Posted by on @

The insomniacOn 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
Read more

Share

Health care, climate change, and the myth of the free market

Posted by on @

Milton Friedman free marketEven 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

Share

Misc Links 1/7/11

Posted by on @

Food pyramid illegalIs 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

Share

Wakefield study of vaccine/autism link is a fraud

Posted by on @

Andrew Wakefield autism vaccines fraudIs 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

Share

Misc Links 1/6/11

Posted by on @

Wendell PotterWhen 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

Share

DSM-5: A “wholesale imperial medicalization of normality”

Posted by on @

The psychiatrist is inFrances 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

Share

Health care in America: You get what you deserve

Posted by on @

Income inequality shoe shineMore 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

Share

Misc Links 1/3/11

Posted by on @

Health care repeal John BoehnerGOP 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
Read more

Share

WikiLeaks and modern medicine

Posted by on @

Julian Assange[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

Share

Misc Links 1/2/11

Posted by on @

Psychiatrist's couchInside 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

Share

Where the poor live: The more polluted part of town

Posted by on @

Smoke blowing from smokestackIn most of the northern hemisphere, winds blow from west to east. So in the days of heavy industrial pollution from the smoke stack industries, the air was cleaner on the west side of town. Living in the east-end was less desirable and less expensive. Another factor may have been the direction in which the local river flowed. Rivers carried sewage, and if the river flowed west to east, as it does in London, that’s another reason the east-end was less desirable. Read more

Share

Misc Links 1/1/11

Posted by on @

Sleep deprived doctorDoctors 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

Share
Skip to toolbar