The Journal of the American Medical Association this week published a commentary, “Psychiatrists’ Relationships With Pharmaceutical Companies: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?” by the chief of the National Institute of Mental Health. On his blog, psychiatrist Daniel Carlat praises the “power (and courage) of the country’s chief psychiatrist calling his own [...]
A study in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, “Stopping Randomized Trials Early for Benefit and Estimation of Treatment Effects,” gives another troubling look at how inflated may be some of the claims about research findings. One of the authors, Victor Montori, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, is quoted on a Mayo blog: [...]
As Reuters reports, “virtually all of the experts who wrote favorably about GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s troubled diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone) had financial ties to drug makers, a finding that shows the need for reform of such relationships, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.” The study appears in the BMJ. Mayo’s Dr. Victor Montori told Reuters: “It was [...]
That’s the title of an op-ed piece by Dr. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy & Clinical Practice. Excerpts: “Here’s a question that’s not being asked in the healthcare debate: How much medical care do we want in our lives? It’s something we should be discussing. Start with the two life events [...]
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: [...]
In a stunning piece of science writing and literary journalism, author Rebecca Skloot tells a powerful story of medical ethics wrapped in the very personal human story of one African-American family over the past 50 years. It’s the story of Henrietta Lacks, a name few people recognize. But you can visit laboratories around the world [...]
The Carlat Psychiatry Blog offers thoughts on who should be listed as an author of a medical journal article. And Dr. Daniel Carlat offers some recommendations on the practice: “–Journals should not publish articles that are clearly written in order to promote the funder’s product. Generally speaking, this would exclude any articles involving medical writing [...]
See the Huffington Post investigative fund piece by Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee, “Government Orders Columbia to Tell Patients ‘True Nature’ of Drug Study: Officials Say Research May Have Caused Harm to People Who Had Heart Surgery.” Excerpts: “….two-year medical study at Columbia that government regulators now say was carried out with ethical and regulatory [...]
Start lining up the awards for the series on conflict of interest published by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel this year. Excerpts of the latest: “As fears were growing about the link between hormone therapy and breast cancer, a drug company paid the University of Wisconsin to sponsor ghostwritten medical education articles that downplayed the risks, records [...]
A devastating indictment. That’s what Dr. Daniel Carlat – on his blog – called yesterday’s piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Drug firms’ cash skews doctor classes: Company-funded UW courses often favor medicine, leave out side effects.” I’m late in weighing in on this, so I’ll just refer you to Carlat’s analysis. But I will [...]
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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