Tag: believing in treatments that don’t work
Recommendation for Otitis Media: Watchful Waiting
New guidelines from the Academy of Pediatrics. We’ve discussed the conundrum of antibiotics for otitis media here and here. Having completed a Pediatric Residency and passed my Boards (granted, this was back in the Dark Ages), this comes as such a 180′ turn around, it’s sort of difficult to believe. Stricter diagnostic criteria and broader…
Read MoreAcupuncture and Allergy: Editorial from the Annals of Internal Medicine
From the Annals of Internal Medicine: To be considered effective, a pharmaceutical intervention genrally needs to be proven more effective than placebo. Most suregical interventions, however, are not held to this standard. With some exceptions including vertebral kyphoplasty and knee arthroscopy, surgical interventions have not been subjected to sham surgery-controlled trials. Acupuncture, on the other…
Read MoreBlack Swan: Sunday Morning Philosophizing
Spent the morning reading “Black Swan” by Nassim Taleb, a mathematical trader by profession, but an essayist and “intellectual.” His book outlines how difficult it is to override our innate, evolutionary tendency to make assumptions and draw conclusions that leave us unable to predict highly unusual events. But in outlining his ideas, he touches on…
Read MoreDr.Oz: Morning Philosophizing
From the Feb 4th issue of the New Yorker, a profile of Dr. Mehmet Oz, entitled “The Operator,” (he is discussing the presence of a guest “authority” on his show who explicitly rejects the tenets of science) “If I don’t talk to him I have abdicated my responsibility, because the currency that I deal in…
Read MoreValue of Yearly Physicals Controversial
Over diagnosis of small irregularities can lead to over testing and risks. We’ve discussed the problems with too much exposure to the health system here, here. January 21, 2013, 12:01 am A Check on Physicals By JANE E. BRODY “Go Beyond Your Father’s Annual Physical. Live Longer, Feel Better” This sales pitch for the…
Read MoreClinical Trials Subject to Bias in Reporting.
This post is a sort of corollary of the skepticism around acupuncture research. The flip side is that when the researchers believe in, or want something to work, the reporting becomes skewed. In this case, side effects were significantly under reported in the studies. January 14, 2013 Clinical Trials Flawed by Biased Reporting By…
Read MoreHuffington Post: What Acupuncture Can Teach Us About Science
I came across this article from last October from the Huffington Post. It is referencing the comprehensive article concluding that acupuncture works for pain. Blog discussion here. In the Huffington Post a professor from Saybrook University discusses the quandary of acupuncture and that it has been shown to work in spite of a comprehensive understanding…
Read MoreMammography: Effectiveness Still Under Scrutiny
From the recent New England Journal of Medicine, their conclusion from examining the data “Although it is not certain which women have been affected, the imbalance suggests that there is substantial overdiagnosis, accounting for nearly a third of all newly diagnosed breast cancers, and that screening is having, at best, only a small effect…
Read MoreClostridia Dificile on the Rise
We’ve been discussing C.Dif (Clostridia Dificile) in the context of encouraging good bacteria. This is from the most recent Anesthesiology Today. Dramatic Rise in Hospital Visits for C. Difficile by George Ochoa Despite efforts by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and antimicrobial stewardship programs to combat Clostridium difficile infections (CDIs), the national…
Read MoreAnother Article on Steroid Injection Risk
We’ve covered the hazards of epidural steroid injections here. But this article is a good summary of the questionable efficacy, the skyrocketing usage, and the horrors of the fungal meningitis cases. How Back Pain Turned Deadly ..There are the doctors who overprescribe an invasive back-pain therapy that, in studies, has not proved useful…
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