I would ignore this except that it’s in the Washington Post and despite the fact that they’re closing bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, what’s in what remains of the paper is still influential. So I feel compelled to address Dana Milbank’s column in the Post about the US Preventive Services Task Force [...]
A Bloomberg story reminds us that 6 years ago journalist Ray Moynihan in the British Medical Journal called female sexual dysfunction (FSD) “the freshest, clearest example we have” of a disease created by pharmaceutical companies to make healthy people think they need medicine. Now that the Boehringer Ingelheim drug company has announced results of a [...]
The disconnect between the facts and women’s beliefs about breast cancer was shown again in a USA Today story. Excerpts: “A vast majority of American women plan to ignore controversial new recommendations about mammograms, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows. The poll also shows that most women sharply overestimate their risk of developing the disease. … [...]
Paul Scott has an opinion piece in the Rochester Post-Bulletin in which he criticizes what he calls the Mayo Clinic’s “vague and surprisingly unprepared” response to the US Preventive Services Task Force’s mammography recommendations. “Taking unspecified issue with “the modeling data used in the analysis,” it stated “a substantial number of women who receive biopsies [...]
Many of us might rather move on and end all of the discussion about the US Preventive Task Force’s mammography recommendations last week. But I think it’s essential that we reflect on ten things that stand out from last week: 1. Many in the general public (most of those quoted in news stories) are not [...]
John Crewdson in The Atlantic: “The current controversy over the task force’s report owes much to the media’s confusing coverage, some of which has been misinformed, including by TV doctors who ought to know better. The confusion has been abetted by the American Cancer Society, whose position appeared to have softened, then hardened again, in [...]
Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz strayed beyond media observations and injected his own comments about the US Preventive Services Task Force breast screening recommendations. He calls the task force recommendation a “don’t-worry-be-happy-till-you’re-50 finding.” He defines “the essential problem with such studies” as “in the end it’s a very personal decision.” Exactly. And that was [...]
My friend Robert Davis writes about five popular falsehoods he’s seen this week in the “the widespread confusion, consternation, and even anger that the new (US Preventive Services Task Force mammography) guidelines have unleashed.” His five: 1. This is all about saving money. 2. This is about rationing. 3. Early detection saves lives. 4. The [...]
I am a frequent critic of TV health news – and especially of much of this week’s TV coverage of the US Preventive Services Task Force mammography recommendations. So I want to make special note this week of some of the fine work by Dr. Nancy Snyderman on this issue. I’ve seen several examples where [...]
As I’ve written earlier, the reaction from some people that this week’s US Preventive Services Task Force recommendations were “surprising” or “coming out of nowhere” are themselves surprising. Anyone – certainly any informed health care consumer and certainly any journalist- should have known that the uncertainties surrounding mammography have been debated for decades. There’s a [...]
We look for more critical analysis of FDA expedited approval of a new drug like this.
Five-star story on small study that tries to counter large body of evidence on soy supplements for hot flashes.
Our reviewers, including a leading women’s health clinician-researcher, felt this piece would have been benefited from more data and context.
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