Don’t know who nominated this blog for a 2009 Medical Weblog Award – but thanks. And then, the nomination was elevated to finalist status. We’re kind of a fish out of water in this category, since all the other finalists appear to be doctors – and I’m just an old journalist. But then again the [...]
Blogger Alison Bass jumps on a Journal of Bioethical Inquiry article that says that “while evidence-based medicine is a noble ideal, marketing-based medicine is the current reality.” Bass consistently tracks medicine’s conflict of interest issues. Her blog would be a good bookmark for you if you care about these issues. And her book, “Side Effects: [...]
On the MSNBC.com health page at the moment I write this (the site will probably change by the time you visit) is a good story that reports: “…a bevy of United States breast-feeding advocates may have unleashed a well-meaning but misguided flood of mothers’ milk to the earthquake-shattered nation, one that aid workers in Haiti [...]
Why would a local TV station even do this story? A local entrepeneur makes claims about a chewing gum to improve male sexual function. Why would WTVJ in Miami devote time to this? Because it’s about sex. It’s an easy story. And what pick up! The same story has now been picked up by the [...]
Patient advocate Trisha Torrey writes and talks a lot about “participatory medicine.” Today she writes: “While many of us patients truly want to participate in our own care, we’re not finding a great deal of cooperation from the others who must participate – our providers. Some providers get it! In fact, some are very cooperative, [...]
Kevin Pho, MD, a primary care physician in Nashua, N.H., who blogs at KevinMD.com, advises other physicians in his USA Today column: “Doctors who are not active online risk being marginalized. Facebook and Twitter users, more than half of whom are younger than 34, rely on the Web for most of their information. As this [...]
Walt Bogdanich and a team of reporters produced a powerful package entitled, “Radiation Offers New Cures, and Ways to Do Harm.” He profiled two people who died – one who received seven times his prescribed dose and one who absorbed “27 days of radiation overdoses, each three times the prescribed amount.” But the story also [...]
Physician-blogger Tony Brayer writes, “Why I am so over Dr. Oz.” She gives examples of why she thinks he is “embarrassing” the medical profession. Her words: • “His “Real-Age” website got 27 million people to sign up and take a health quiz. That information was sold to pharmaceutical companies who used the direct emails for [...]
I’ve created a “Question Mark TV Health News Hall of Shame” for all of those health stories that are teased, introduced or use graphics with a question mark at the end of a sensational claim. I’m going to keep adding to this list, hoping to reach the tease-writers of tomorrow if today’s boffo writers won’t [...]
The NPR program “On the Media” did a terrific job turning to several sources (including me) for analysis of the journalism ethics issues involved in TV network MD-reporters becoming part of the story while delivering care in Haiti. Host Bob Garfield used these phrases and terms in describing the reporting in question: • Gimmick• Obscures [...]
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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