Fact: the US spends a far greater percentage of the Gross Domestic Product on health care than any other country on earth. Suggestion: trends like the following, and news stories about these trends, may be a big reason why. Caution: You need to sit through a 15-second commercial before seeing the news video, which, itself [...]
A Minneapolis-area psychiatrist, Charles Dean, published an opinion piece in the Star Tribune, “Rise in ADHD cases is due to marketing.“ It appeared adjacent to the Strib’s republishing of the NYT op-ed piece, “Diagnosis: Human,” by Ted Gup – that we blogged about yesterday. Dr. Dean writes: “The 53 percent increase in the diagnosis of [...]
An op-ed worth reading in the New York Times – “Diagnosis: Human.” Journalist-author Ted Gup, a fellow of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, tells the tragic story of his son, one of the “11 percent of school-age children (who) now receive a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — some [...]
Dr. Elizabeth Loder, who is a US research editor for the BMJ, blogged “How medical journals can help stop disease-mongering.” in the blog, Loder reflected on her recent participation on a panel I moderated at the Selling Sickness conference in Washington, DC. Joining Loder on the panel were Jocalyn Clark, PhD, of PLoS Medicine, and [...]
Is there momentum for exploration of disease-mongering? In 2006, an Inaugural Congress on Disease Mongering met in Australia. In October of 2010, I flew to Amsterdam to attend an international conference called “Selling Sickness.” Well, “Selling Sickness” comes to the U.S. February 20-22 – with a conference, “Selling Sickness 2013: People Before Profits,” in Washington, [...]
The New Yorker profile of Dr. Oz, “The Operator: Is the most trusted doctor in America doing more harm than good?” The NPR piece, “Hanging A Price Tag On Radiology Tests Didn’t Change Doctors’ Habits.” PharmedOut.org’s new Drug Ads teaching tool. It’s a three-part slideshow covering misleading advertising in medical journals, indirect marketing, and disease-mongering; [...]
Dr. Allen Frances writes that the American Psychiatric Association approval of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual this past weekend marks “a sad day for psychiatry.“ Frances, psychiatry professor emeritus at Duke, chaired the DSM-4 task force. He lists the top ten changes that he says should be ignored: “I would suggest [...]
One of our readers tipped us off to what he called “a new poster child for overtreatment.” We’ll call it disease-mongering. It’s the website of the drug company promoting Zicam. The new pitch promotes Zicam for “pre-colds.” What’s a Pre-Cold™?, the website asks, anticipating our astute question. Well, as you can see, it’s a term [...]
Last week, the online journal BMJ Open published a paper, “An analysis of the content and clinical implications of online advertisements for female genital cosmetic surgery.“ The researchers examined “the breadth, depth and quality of clinical information communicated to women” on 10 popular provider websites that promoted female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS). Their conclusion: “The [...]
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) program, The Current, reported: “Drug to treat Female Orgasmic Disorder under speculation.” The brief program description: “Trials of a new drug to help treat a condition known as female orgasmic disorder are underway in Canada. But critics say there’s no such thing, and this is really about drug manufacturing and [...]
This story focuses on a family that may have a rare genetic mutation that increases their risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, the “rare” part wasn’t mentioned until 1,600 words into this 2,100 word story.
While this story adequately addressed 7 of our 10 criteria, the 3 on which it missed were significant omissions, yet could have been easily addressed.
Solid medical conference reporting, with many expert interviews and good context provided. Goes far beyond the conference presentation itself.
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