Some of the Groupon, Living Social, Daily Deal offerings are getting a little crazy. Here’s one I got today. The ad copy is astounding: Been dealing with a minor ache or pain? Get it checked out today! Once in a while, you may experience an enlightening moment in your life. This experience may change the [...]
One of the most frequent critics of the revision of psychiatry’s “bible,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (or DSM, now going on DSM-V), is Allen Frances, M.D., who chaired the DSM-IV Task Force and is currently professor emeritus at Duke. He writes on a “DSM-5 in Distress” blog on the Psychology Today website. In his [...]
We’ve long been admirers of the Croakey blog, run by Melissa Sweet in Australia. Now Croakey has a new project called The Naked Doctor. The site says: Naked Doctor aims to encourage discussion and awareness of the opportunities to do more for health by doing less. It is a compilation of articles, books and other [...]
…And all through the town not a creature was stirring except for some struggling to stay awake throughout the night shift…. So reads a newspaper ad for a federally-controlled substance in prescription drug form that is marketed for ES caused by SWD or OSA. Don’t know what that means? Come on. Where have you been? [...]
MSNBC commits an egregious example of disease-mongering in a piece they headlined: “Plastic surgeon wants to fix your ‘runner’s face’. “ What is so egregious? Let us count the ways: • They pass along a plastic surgeon’s news release about his treatment for a condition he calls “runner’s face”. • So it is a promotion [...]
Blogger Patrick Malone writes: “The Award for Most Fear-Mongering Health Care Statement of the Year … goes to Skip Lockwood, head of a prostate cancer advocacy group called Zero. When the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routine screening of men with the PSA blood test, Lockwood said the PSTF’s advice “condemns tens of [...]
Almost as if the American Heart Association felt it must compete for some of the pinkwashing attention given breast cancer in October, it presents its “Go Red for Women” campaign with the message, “Make it your mission to fight heart disease in women.” As with so many disease awareness campaigns, this is, at its conceptual [...]
Another interesting post by Liz Scherer on her “Flashfree: not your mama’s menopause” blog – this time about: ” a review in the Journal of Aging Studies discussing how the social construct of menopause has shifted to “an increasingly more medicalized perspective that emphasizes the biological deficits of the aging female body.” Scherer says the [...]
Granted, it’s only the fashion and style section of the New York Times, but somebody from the health-medicine-science team at the Times has to give their colleagues a little in-house training on disease-mongering. For the second time this week – the other being its “Never Too Old for Plastic Surgery” piece, the Times breaks new [...]
This ad jumped out at me from the recent edition of Prevention magazine. • “overactive bladder symptoms do not always have to happen as you age” – Well, what that does is subtly put the thought in your head that it DOES happen to a lot of people as they age. “Gee,” you might then [...]
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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