Category: Medicine
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RFID and cancer
Who needs privacy concerns if RFID causes cancer. The small implantable microchips that have generated concern from privacy experts and readers of revelations alike have now been associated with sarcoma formation in animals. A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had “induced” malignant tumors in some lab…
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The antidepressant suicide link – busted?
The Washington Post reports on the apparent jump in suicide rates since antidepressants got a black-box warning in 2004 after some reports suggested an increased suicide rate in youths after the initial prescription. The article here (goddamn WaPo still can’t figure out how to link anyone but themselves) shows a disturbing correlation: METHOD: The authors…
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WSJ and anti-government conspiracies
Leave it to AEI writing for the WSJ editorial page to allege a grand conspiracy of the government against pharmaceutical companies. Their proof? The government wants to compare the efficacy of new drugs to older ones to make sure they’re actually better. The reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (Schip), created in 1997…
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Cato is shocked, shocked! To find wait times for care in the US.
The NYT reports on the differing wait times between high-cost cosmetic procedures in dermatology, and low-cost potentially life-saving screenings for melanoma and other skin cancers. Patients seeking an appointment with a dermatologist to ask about a potentially cancerous mole have to wait substantially longer than those seeking Botox for wrinkles, says a study published online…
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Bad news for lying “Family Values” associations
One of the problems with denialists is that they simply can’t accept that science doesn’t conform to their ideology. For instance, it’s not enough to just be morally opposed to abortion, the anti-choice organizations have to misrepresent risks of the procedure, including promoting the false link (NCI) between abortion and breast cancer. Recently, Talk to…
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Is the FDA responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths?
No. But the WSJ would like you to believe so. One libertarian talking point I hear a lot (Cato of course loves this story), and is repeatedly pushed by the WSJ, is that the market and consumers should decide the safety and efficacy of drugs – not dirty gov’mint bureaucrats who want nothing but death…
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AMA and Prescription Data Mining
It’s a few weeks old, but I just came across this oped in the San Francisco Chronicle by Robert Restuccia and Lydia Vaias. They’ve painted a big target on the American Medical Association for its role in prescription data mining. It’s important to note exactly what AMA is doing here, because, from the oped, it…
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Again with the Marijuana
What is it about reporting on pot that makes people so Puritanical? Today I read in the Guardian Cannabis joints damage lungs more than tobacco – study. A single cannabis joint may cause as much damage to the lungs as five chain-smoked cigarettes, research has found. Is that so? Let’s take a look at the…
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Does Smoking Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?
A lot of people are talking about a new study showing a 40% increase risk of “psychosis”, which I first heard news of in this story, from the Daily Mail: A single joint of cannabis raises the risk of schizophrenia by more than 40 percent, a disturbing study warns. The Government-commissioned report has also found…
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Are metrics in medicine a good thing?
The Washington post reports on new efforts by insurance companies to rate doctors performance and their policies that penalize doctors for performing poorly according to their metrics. After 26 years of a successful medical practice, Alan Berkenwald took for granted that he had a good reputation. But last month he was told he didn’t measure…