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January 31, 2011
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.
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Jan -
January 31, 2011
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.
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Jan -
January 30, 2011
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
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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.
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Jan -
January 29, 2011
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.
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Jan -
January 29, 2011
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.
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Jan -
January 28, 2011
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.”
For example, prehypertension, a new disease. The risks of harm from medication are high while the risk 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.
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Jan -
January 27, 2011
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.
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Jan -
January 26, 2011
Does Raising the Thermostat Increase Obesity? (WebMD)
The body burns energy when it’s cold. “When you look at what could be causing the obesity epidemic, there are many possible causes besides eating too much and not exercising enough, and this is clearly one of them.”
Does central heating make us fat? (NHS)
Scientific article suggests that as indoor temperatures have increased, we’ve reduced the calories we use to stay warm, leading us to store the excess energy as body fat. The study is “not conclusive and does not prove that simply turning down your thermostat will make you thinner. An alternative explanation could be that people put on winter weight because they stay indoors to keep warm and therefore do less exercise.”
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Jan -
January 25, 2011
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.
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Jan -
January 24, 2011
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.”
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Jan -
January 23, 2011
Common sense tells us that early detection of breast cancer is good, and most screening programs have been successful in reducing breast cancer deaths. … However, while some women truly benefit from early detection, others experience harm and unnecessary anxiety. The women who received false-positives in our study experienced a significant reduction in their quality of life, especially if they were prone to anxiety, and the effects of this lasted at least a year.
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Jan -
January 23, 2011
A world in which cancer is normalized as a manageable chronic condition would be a wonderful thing, but a risk-factor world in which we all think of ourselves as precancerous would not. It might decrease the incidence of some forms of malignancy while hugely increasing the numbers of healthy people under medical treatment. It would be a strange victory in which the price to be paid for checking the spread of cancer through the body is its uncontrolled spread through the culture.
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Jan -
January 23, 2011
Earlier this month scientists announced a test that can detect a single cancer cell in a blood sample. Although some news reports were realistic – BusinessWeek commented that “researchers still aren’t sure what these circulating tumor cells (CTCs) actually mean” – most greeted the news as a revolution in the fight against cancer, promising early, non-invasive detection.
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Jan -
January 23, 2011
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.
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Jan -
January 22, 2011
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.
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Jan -
January 21, 2011
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?
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Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, Japanese researchers say (Guardian)
