On the run this morning, but wanted to pass along this thoughtful analysis by my Australian friend Melissa Sweet – “
On his Cardiobrief blog, Larry Husten introduces: “…the first of a three-part series on the National Lipid Association. This first part focuses on the NLA’s publication of a series of papers offering expert guidance on familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) and raises serious questions about the role of industry in the documents. The second part explores additional [...]
On Maggie Mahar’s Health Beat Blog, see Naomi Freundlich’s piece, “New Health Indicators Site is a ‘Treasure Trove’ of Valuable Data.” On the Dose of Digital blog, see Jonathan Richman’s excellent analysis, “Lies, Damn Lies, and Pharma Social Media Statistics.” The FDA has announced a webinar for next Thursday (April 28) on its “Bad Ads [...]
“I believe overdiagnosis is the biggest problem posed by modern medicine,” writes Dr. Gil Welch in his new book, “Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick In The Pursuit of Health,” which he coauthored with Drs. Lisa Schwartz and Steve Woloshin. Welch continues: “It has led millions of people to become patients unnecessarily, to be made anxious about [...]
We really couldn’t believe that the Washington Post health blog, “The Checkup,” chose to trumpet actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s ability to dance on the TV show, “Glee.” The Post blogging-journalist wrote: “Glee” was pretty darned great last night, eh? I was so wowed by Gwyneth Paltrow’s singing and also with her dancing. Paltrow’s dance performances were [...]
Blogger Liz Scherer gets worked up about a news story headlined, “White women’s skin may show wrinkles sooner.” Read her post. And then realize how broadly this news was disseminated. This is just the first of many pages of Google search results. Sheesh.
Just five days ago we wrote about an American journalist’s observations of medicalization of one problem sometimes observed after menopause – vaginal atrophy. Today, we see that this disease-mongering trend has popped up in Australia as well. This should be no surprise. Such campaigns are usually led by multinational pharmaceutical companies and their advertising and [...]
Journalist Liz Scherer writes to inform us that: “The International Menopause Society (IMS) joined forces this year with Novo Nordisk FemCare Ag (marketers of Activella®) to ‘end silent suffering’ and promote recommendations for the management of vaginal atrophy during the menopause. A key problem, they say, is that results of a phone survey show that [...]
That’s the way Dr. Peter Mansfield of the Healthy Skepticism, Inc. organization – run out of his home in Australia – describes the status quo. Mansfield, just one of the planners for last week’s international “Selling Sickness” conference in Amsterdam, is a soft-spoken man who has carried a big stick at times in his 25+ [...]
I’m headed to Amsterdam for this international conference this week. Details are available at: http://www.gezondescepsis.nl/conference-2010.html. Those who use Twitter can follow the conference tweets using the hashtag #ssadam. The first talk will be given by Australian journalist Ray Moynihan, “Where science meets marketing.” He’ll also speak at a one-day workshop on disease-mongering on October 16 [...]
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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