Journalists Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer published an important article in the BMJ entitled, “Why the FDA can’t protect the public.”
Much of their emphasis was on medical device makers failing to properly conduct safety studies before or after marketing approval.
On the local level, another fine example of TV reporting came from Jeff Baillon of KMSP-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul who led an investigation into problems with artificial joints. Excerpt:
“Dr. Edward Cheng is a surgeon at the University of Minnesota. He says, “If Maytag can track their washing machines, or if a car maker can track where a car goes and who the owner is, we should have the ability to track all major orthopedic implants, where they go and when they’re removed.”
But right now in this country that’s not happening. There is no mandatory system that tracks the failure rates of all joint implants. In Great Britain and Australia, doctors, hospitals and device makers are required to report to a registry whenever patients need revision surgeries to fix faulty joints.
Dr. Cheng says, “Having a registry would be a dramatic step forward in our ability to identify problems.”
Dr. Cheng says a joint registry would uncover failing products sooner meaning fewer people would be harmed. In 2006 approximately 77,000 revision surgeries were done in the United States at a cost of more than 3 billion dollars. Countries with registries have seen the need for revisions drop by as much as ten percent.”
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Like Michael Corleone of science reporting that @garyschwitzer is (he tries to get out, bullshit disguised as #science #journalism keeps pulling him back in!), he drops this on @nytimes idiocy 🙄 in reporting T1 diabetes "cure"
HT @HealthNewsRevu
https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/11/cure-for-type-1-diabetes-weve-been-down-this-road-before-with-ny-times/
A great read on this weekend’s NYT claims of a cure for Type 1.
Cure for Type 1 diabetes? We’ve been down this road before with NY Times https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/11/cure-for-type-1-diabetes-weve-been-down-this-road-before-with-ny-times/
"But it is the framing and the emphasis of the #journalism by a leading science journalist at a leading newspaper that demands scrutiny. It has an impact on readers and on sick people that may cause harm by promoting false hope about extremely preliminary research"
👍👏💪 truth https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1465399358137024518
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Gregory D. Pawelski
November 11, 2010 at 2:21 pmQuestioning medical device safety? Great post Gary! Another issue I’ve been having to deal with over the last ten years. It took me two years to get my mother’s orthoped to do a revision surgery on her right knee device, because her patella was dislocated. Finally, after an ER visit with a 103 temp and a “hot” right knee, medical personal personel ruled out MRSA, UTI, even gout and indicators lead to a revision surgery. Six months later, her patella was dislocated again! And to boot, an aspiration of the knee indicates infection. And there’s no mandatory sytem in this country to track the failure rates of all joint implants??? GEESH!!!
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like