Medicine
sb admin | September 11, 2007The following post is by Dr. David Egilman, a familiar figure to those who have been following the case of Eli Lillyâs schizophrenia drug Zyprexa. See Alex Berensonâs New York Times articles on the case for more background, or read David Michaelsâs post about Zyprexa and sequestered science. -- Editor
âThe Truth is Not Freeâ
By David Egilman
September 11, 2007
All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good people to remain silent.
-- Edmund Burke
The consequences of silence can be devastating. My father spent WWII in a German concentration camp largely as a…
oracknows | September 11, 2007Jake over at Pure Pedantry pointed the way to an article in Science that I hadn't seen yet because of my absence. Just like yesterday's topic, this one too is right up my alley. Specifically, it's about something near and dear to my heart, namely the trials and tribulations of being a physician-scientist. The article paints a rather grim picture, with the observation that, although most MD/PhD's would like to remain researchers, many are dropping out in order to become straight clinicians, clinical instructors at medical schools, or industry researchers. Jake's commentary is certainly worth…
bcohen | September 11, 2007Part 1 | 2 | 3
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"Dendrogram showing 18 tumors from BRCA1 mutation carriers (black branches) and two tumors from BRCA2 mutation carriers (yellow branches)" (source).
Part II with Shobita Parthasarathy, author of Building Genetic Medicine, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-bloggers series can be found here.
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WF: You've developed this intriguing approach, looking at technologies as architectures. Can you explain that a bit?
SP: I argue that technologies have specific architectures, which include their components and how they are fitted together. What appears to be the same…
mementomori | September 10, 2007The US Senate is looking at a bill that would force pharmaceutical companies to disclose any payments or gifts they make to doctors.
Apparently a few Senators are upset that physicians might prescribe medications for patients not just because they are effective, but also because the docs want to reward Big Pharma for sending over a baksheesh, or in the eyes of the Senate a large envelope stuffed with unmarked bills. Hey, I'm all in favor of an open policy when it comes to informing patients of why we recommend certain treatments. If a company is paying me to place patients on a clinical…
terrasig | September 10, 2007Today's New York Times notes this weekend's launch of Elsevier's OncologySTAT website:
But now Reed Elsevier, which publishes more than 400 medical and scientific journals, is trying an experiment that stands this model on its head. Over the weekend it introduced a Web portal, www.OncologySTAT.com, that gives doctors free access to the latest articles from 100 of its own pricey medical journals and that plans to sell advertisements against the content.
The new site asks oncologists to register their personal information. In exchange, it gives them immediate access to the latest cancer-related…
purepedantry | September 10, 2007An article in Science discusses the physician-scientist program (or MD-PhD) and the trouble in maintaining people in the basic sciences. Basically, most MD-PhDs say when they finish the program that they would like to remain researchers in some capacity, but many of them drop-out in order to become straight clinicians, instructors at medical schools, or work in industry.
Money quote:
The problem, he believes, stems from the fact that every lab chief "essentially is running a small business." Like all businesses, "you have to pay your bills." Lab chiefs, however, can only get the money they…
oracknows | September 10, 2007Sadly (with regards to vacation) and not-so-sadly (with regards to the events of last week), it's time to dive headlong back into the "real world" at work, starting with clinic today. It also means it's time to get back to my favorite hobby (blogging) in a much more regular way, although I will say that a relatively prolonged break from the blog was good, and my traffic only suffered mildly for it. I may have to do it more often, if only to keep things fresher.
One of the tasks that confronted me this weekend as I got ready to face a full week back at work was to try to catch up on all the…
denialism | September 7, 2007The Washington Post reports on the apparent jump in suicide rates since antidepressants got a black-box warning in 2004 after some reports suggested an increased suicide rate in youths after the initial prescription.
The article here (goddamn WaPo still can't figure out how to link anyone but themselves) shows a disturbing correlation:
METHOD: The authors examined U.S. and Dutch data on prescription rates for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) from 2003 to 2005 in children and adolescents (patients up to age 19), as well as suicide rates for children and adolescents, using…
oracknows | September 6, 2007Due to a death in the family, I have to go back into the vaults of the old blog for some more reposts. Regular blogging should resume in a day or two. This particular post first appeared on January 13, 2006.
A couple of days ago, I took a bit of issue with Kevin, MD for an off-handed remark he had made welcoming us academic physicians "to the real world" in response to an article about how demoralized and depressed young academicians have become due to the increasing encroachment of financial pressures and demands to generate more clinical income. I gently pointed out to him that we have been…
sb admin | September 6, 2007Â By Susan F. Wood, PhDÂ
In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine today, Sheila Weiss Smith points out that the FDA has not been responsive to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on Drug Safety. That study and its recommendations took on the question of how to improve our nation's drug safety system, specifically through regulation by FDA. In her Perspective article, Dr. Smith writes:
In general, the IOM implored the agency to "embrace a culture of safety" by increasing the priority accorded to the safety of patients. Such an emphasis could have ramifications for medical…
oracknows | September 6, 2007Due to a death in the family, I have to go back into the vaults of the old blog for some more reposts. Regular blogging should resume in a day or two. This particular post first appeared on February 1, 2006.
Here's something I wish there was more of, the criminal prosecution of quacks when their quackery results in the death of a patient:
A man who called himself a naturopathic doctor is scheduled to stand trial for the death of one of his patients starting Tuesday in Jefferson County District Court in Golden, Colo.
Brian O'Connell, 37, was charged with manslaughter after he unsuccessfully…
neurophilosophy | September 5, 2007Mild cognitive impairment affects many cognitive functions, particularly memory. People with mild cognitive impairment are 3-4 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's Disease; hence, it is regarded as a transition stage between normal age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer's Disease.
Researchers Emory University School of Medicine and Rush University Medical Center in Chicago now report that reduced levels of a receptor found in nerve cells is associated with the onset of mild cognitive impairment. A strong correlation between receptor levels and cognitive performance was also found.…
oracknows | September 5, 2007Due to a death in the family, I have to go back into the vaults of the old blog for some more reruns. Regular blogging should resume in a day or two This particular post first appeared on June 16, 2005.
One of the overarching themes of this blog has been skepticism in the claims of alternative medicine. Consequently, a recurring type of post has been the debunking of some claim or other made by the proponents of alternative medicine. Sometimes debunking these claims is like shooting fish in a barrel, allowing for humorous play with the concept, and sometimes the claims are a bit harder to…
tsmith | August 31, 2007Those familiar with the history of influenza probably know about the 1918 outbreak of swine influenza in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In the fall of that year, the National Swine Show and Exposition in Cedar Rapids opened, bringing people and their hogs from miles around. Soon after it opened its doors, people noticed their swine were becoming sick--and the symptoms looked suspisciously like those of human influenza. When the virus was characterized years later, it was indeed found to be the influenza virus--and it was very similar to ones that were isolated from humans.
This characterization of…
sb admin | August 31, 2007by Susan F. Wood, PhDÂ
Todayâs Washington Post writes about one more instance where womenâs health and childrenâs health were a lower priority than the interests of a powerful group. In this case, it was breastfeeding vs. the formula industry.
Marc Kaufman and Christopher Lee write:
In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin…
denialism | August 31, 2007Leave it to AEI writing for the WSJ editorial page to allege a grand conspiracy of the government against pharmaceutical companies. Their proof? The government wants to compare the efficacy of new drugs to older ones to make sure they're actually better.
The reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (Schip), created in 1997 to cover children from lower-income families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, is up for renewal this fall. Tucked into page 414, section 904 of the House bill is a provision to spend more than $300 million to establish a new federal "…
denialism | August 30, 2007The NYT reports on the differing wait times between high-cost cosmetic procedures in dermatology, and low-cost potentially life-saving screenings for melanoma and other skin cancers.
Patients seeking an appointment with a dermatologist to ask about a potentially cancerous mole have to wait substantially longer than those seeking Botox for wrinkles, says a study published online today by The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Researchers reported that dermatologists in 12 cities offered a typical wait of eight days for a cosmetic patient wanting Botox to smooth wrinkles, compared…
oracknows | August 29, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on December 27, 2005. Enjoy!
Since the very beginning of this blog, I've said that I'd love to see "alternative" medicine treated on equal footing with conventional medicine. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean what alties think it does. When I say "equal footing," I don't necessarily mean that alt-med should be treated with equal…
terrasig | August 29, 2007Nick Anthis at The Scientific Activist had a great post yesterday on the fallacies in an article from the UK Guardian detailing a peer-reviewed publication on replacing animal research with in vitro and computational models. As much as all scientists would wish this were true, there are simply no replacements for animal research in many areas, as noted by PZ Myers.
One of my favorite sources for promoting the factual necessity for animal research (and exposing extremist groups for attacks on scientists) is the Washington, DC-based, Foundation for Biomedical Research. The poster above is…
neurophilosophy | August 29, 2007 Alzheimer's Disease is the most common form of age-related dementia, affecting an estimated 25 million people worldwide.The pathological hallmarks of this condition, which were described 100 years ago by the German pathologist Alois Alzheimer, consist of plaques of amyloid beta protein and neurofibrillary tangles made of tau protein. These insoluble deposits accumulate within the brain, and are believed to be toxic to nerve cells.
Now, researchers from Harvard Medical School show that the amyloid plaques in mice with Alzheimer's-like pathology can be effectively cleared by implanting cells…