Monthly Archives: January 2011

Misc Links 1/11/11

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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?
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Atypical antipsychotics: Overprescribed, not safer, not more effective

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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

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Misc Links 1/8/11

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

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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

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Misc Links 1/7/11

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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
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Wakefield study of vaccine/autism link is a fraud

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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

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Misc Links 1/6/11

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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

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

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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

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Health care in America: You get what you deserve

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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

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Misc Links 1/3/11

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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
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WikiLeaks and modern medicine

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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

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Misc Links 1/2/11

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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

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Where the poor live: The more polluted part of town

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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

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Misc Links 1/1/11

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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

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