Bad Science- John Oliver
This is another brilliant segment by John Oliver. There is so much in it that is important, but in particular, the point that studies are very seldom repeated because they are thankless. Junk science abounds. Beware!
Read MoreTheranos News
http://www.wired.com/2016/05/theranos-inching-towards-legal-bull-issh/?mbid=nl_52016 Update: And the inevitable happened. Blood in the water, lawyers swarming. Yeesh.
Read MoreTheranos (I told you so)
I’m actually not gloating. We discussed Theranos here and here. I don’t like what’s happening to Elizabeth Holmes and her ambitious company. She flew too close to the sun, but there were older statesmen (literally) who should have tempered the youthful exuberance, and told her to stay closer to earth. But she will pay the…
Read MoreSelf Rated Health Scores and Heart Rate Variability
ne”] In researching background material for my upcoming presentation at the AAMA (American Academy of Medical Acupuncture) conference in Anaheim, I came across this study. It has so many interesting aspects to it, but I will confine myself to this excerpt. “Consistent with our hypothesis HRV is a more inclusive and integrative index than other…
Read MoreOver the Counter Medications Linked to Dementia
Wow. I did not know this. Benadryl as also implicated. “For instance, the most commonly used medications in the study were tricyclic antidepressants like doxepin (Sinequan), first-generation antihistamines like chlorpheniramine (Chlor-Trimeton), and antimuscarinics for bladder control like oxybutynin (Ditropan). The study estimated that people taking at least 10 mg/day of doxepin, 4 mg/day of…
Read MoreLawyer Big Pharma Hates
Reuben Guttman: The lawyer pharma loves to hate Reuben Guttman: The lawyer pharma loves to hate Reuben Guttman: The lawyer pharma loves to hate
Read MoreAMA seeks to ban direct consumer advertising
I think this is a good first step to reign in Big Pharma. “Last year, the pharmaceutical industry spent $4.8 billion pitching its products and messages to Americans, a 17 percent increase from 2013, according to the market research firm Kantar Media.” “But the AMA is now seizing on another reason for a ban. The organization…
Read MoreFreakonomics: Starting a Healthcare Revolution
From Freakonomics radio. Podcast here. Transcript here. “Brenner: The major imperative for most organizations in health care is to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And money is like fertilizer. And the way you get bigger is getting more money, more market share, more customers. DUBNER: Brenner believes that the practice of medicine has been…
Read MoreBig Pharma Hazards
Danish Dr. Peter Gotzsche makes his case for the dangers of the pharmaceutical companies. “The main reason we take so many drugs is that drug companies don t sell drugs, they sell lies about drugs. This is what makes drugs so different from anything else in life… Virtually everything we know about drugs is what…
Read MoreBest Cardiologists Bad for Health
This study was published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) by looking at what how patient outcomes compare who are admitted to hospitals during the annual cardiology conferences. It is a way to get at data that otherwise would be hard to come by. “They noted that there was no difference in mortality…
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