See Sharon Begley’s Newsweek cover story, “One Word Can Save Your Life: No!: New research shows how some common tests and procedures aren’t just expensive, but can do more harm than good.“
Her ending:
“Many doctors don’t seem to be getting the message about useless and harmful health care. Medicare pays them more than $100 million a year for screening colonoscopies; some 40 percent are for people in whom they will almost certainly harm more than help. Arthroscopic knee surgery for osteoarthritis is performed about 650,000 times a year; studies show that it, too, is no more effective than placebo treatment, yet taxpayers and private insurers pay for it. And although several large studies, including the Occluded Artery Trial in 2006, have shown that inserting a stent to prop open a blocked artery more than 24 hours after a heart attack does not improve survival rates or reduce the risk of another coronary compared with drugs alone, the practice continues at a rate of 100,000 such procedures a year, estimate researchers led by Dr. Judith Hochman, a cardiologist at New York University. “We’re killing more people than we’re saving with these procedures,” says UT’s Goodwin. “It’s as simple as that.”
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Take all the issues enmeshed in any cancer screening story and amplify it with the liquid biopsy issue. @AP's @CarlaKJohnson. did a solid job here. https://apnews.com/article/science-business-health-hodgkin-lymphoma-oregon-ca899bb9c4c7f1859d4e9ce16a1cf78d
Come on, NY Times; you must do better than this. Important research doesn’t need hype and the “breaking news” BS doesn’t help readers or patients. https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2022/03/nyt-proclaims-breaking-news/
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.
Dr Joe
August 22, 2011 at 10:39 pmThis is important for doctors,lawyers,politicians and the public need to know. Screening is over rated and as you rightly say, potentially harmful. Yet doctors may be sued for not doing tests but are legally exposed. They are not sued fort doing tests. If we are to bring about change then doctors who do the right thing need some support.
Keep up the good work-enjoy your blog
Kari Ulrich
August 26, 2011 at 10:01 amReliable information is vital for patients to make informed decisions. Physicians who question whether patients can understand the data, better think twice. Patients today are more educated when it comes to our health care. It is the role of the physician to give out reliable information so that patients can make educated choices.
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