Medecine and Science (2012-2015)

© 2016 Peter Free

 

 

American Cancer Society’s New “Average Risk” Mammography Recommendations — Come Closer to the USPSTF’s Controversial 2009 Recommendation — but Disagreement Persists (21 October 2015)

 

 

A Potentially Important Paper about the Inadequacy of Currently Used Antibiotic Resistance Detection Methods (23 August 2015)

 

 

The FDA’s Bland Perspective on the Cardiovascular Dangers of Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) — and My Observation regarding How to Protect Yourself (27 July 2015)

 

 

Sometimes the Cosmos Just Likes to Mess with Us — G4Free Mini Bike 130 PSI Bike Pump with Hidden Flexible Hose — a Review — and a Related Post-Concussion Syndrome and TBI Story (16 June 2015)

 

 

Foolishly Designed and Implemented U.S. Clinical Medical Registries — Fail to Track Much of Noticeably Useful Substance — What Else Is Not New? (04 May 2015)

 

 

The Medical Money Machine — A Newly Published Study Takes Aim at Unnecessary Preoperative Tests before Cataract Surgery (16 April 2015)

 

 

Ranjana Srivastava’s Essay about Cancer Prognoses, Truth Telling and Ocean Cruises — Illustrates the Challenge of Oncology Practice — and Subtly More (31 March 2015)

 

 

Duodenoscopes — Carbapenem Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) — and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — Does Regulatory Laxity Make Sense? (03 March 2015)

 

 

The FDA Evidently Colludes in Hiding Medical Industry Corruption in Clinical Trials — according to an Investigation by Charles Seife and His Students (10 February 2015)

 

 

All-Cause Mortality Appears to Trump the Few Instances in Which Medical Screening Tests Work to Reduce Disease-Specific Deaths (17 January 2015)

 

 

Could an Entire Country Be Affected by ADHD? — The United States as an Example of “Frenetic Twit Affliction” — Ebola’s Disappearance from American News Is a Telling Example (04 December 2014)

 

 

A Noticeable Number of Medical Providers Appear to Resist Learning to Use Antibiotics Appropriately over the Long Term (16 October 2014)

 

 

Nurse Nina Pham’s Ebola Illness — Anthony Fauci’s Uninsightful Comment about an Inadvertent Breach of Protocol — the CDC’s Belated Admission that It Screwed Up — and How Managerial Complacence Leads to Being Unprepared (15 October 2014)

 

 

Agriculture Has Increased Its Overwhelmingly Medically Unnecessary Use of Antibiotics by 16 Percent — during an Era that Supposedly Was Trying to Corral Escalating Antibiotic Resistance (04 October 2014)

 

 

Dallas Is Not Looking Medically Competent — America’s Probably Indicative Screw Up with Ebola — even after Lots of Advance Warning (03 October 2014)

 

 

Confirmation from the New England Journal of Medicine — as Things Stand, Ebola Is on Its Way to Endemicity in Africa (23 September 2014)

 

 

Questionable Risk Analysis by the Obama Administration — Prioritized but Unworkable Strategy against the Islamic State — versus — Under Reaction to the West African Ebola Epidemic (19 September 2014)

 

 

Hand Washing Compliance in Health Care Is Probably Grossly Over Reported — a Canadian Hospital Study Estimates that the Actuality Is Three Times Less (09 July 2014)

 

 

Ecologist Enric Sala’s Portrayal of His Awakening regarding Global Warming — Illustrates Why We Are Not Going to Do anything Effective to Ameliorate It (03 July 2014)

 

 

Physicians Reportedly often Ignore Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guidelines — For Example, Even When the Continued Efficacy of Antibiotics Is Partially at Stake (21 May 2013)

 

 

Schistosomiasis Documentary — River of Hope by Clifford Bestall — Addresses the Burden of Snail Fever/Bilharzia — as Caused by Dam Building in this Instance — in a Problem-Solving Way that Will Interest Medical Professionals and Ecologically Oriented Biologists — a Tribute to Elizabeth Huttinger and Her Colleagues (06 May 2014)

 

 

The World Health Organization Belatedly Acknowledged that Antimicrobial Resistance Poses a Serious Public Health Problem — Yet WHO’s Summary Makes No Mention of Agriculture’s Irresponsible Non-Medical Use of Tons of Antibiotics — and My Comment about Communicating Effectively in a World Filled with Shouting Fools (02 May 2014)

 

 

Do We Really Want Our Teaching Hospitals Run or Influenced by Pharmaceutical Industry Fat Cats? — Conflicts of Interest that Our Greed-Based Culture Seems to Take for Granted (15 April 2014)

 

 

Medical Establishment Greed — A Proposed New Ailment Called “Sluggish Cognitive Tempo” — More Traditionally Called Slow Wittedness or Even Stupidity — SCT Seems Designed to Pull in Big Bucks for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Quasi Quacks — Perhaps Illustrating Yet another Disorder Called “Ingrained Medical Avarice Delusion” or I-MAD (14 April 2014)

 

 

American Minorities Are Grossly Underrepresented in Medical Clinical Trials — which Demonstrates (again) How Little the Medical Establishment Actually Cares about Being Soundly Scientific (07 April 2014)

 

 

A study of 5,815 elderly Medicare patients indicated that 22 Percent Received Pharmaceutical Prescriptions that Might Have Worsened One of Their Multiple Medical Conditions — the Take Away Is that the Therapeutic Cost-Benefit Ratio for Drug Combinations Needs to Be Assessed for Each Patient(14 March 2014)

 

 

Just Published Canadian Study that Legitimately Questions the Utility of Annual Mammography — Will Not Change Minds — Due to Understandable Cancer Fears and “Costs Be Darned” Thinking (14 February 2014, expanded 18 February 2014)

 

 

2013 Nobel Winner Randy Schekman (Medicine) Cautioned Us — about the Science-Distorting Effect of Artificially Prestigious Science Journals  — a Point Coincidentally Illustrated by the Journal NatureGetting Caught Acting Badly (17 December 2013)

 

 

Yesterday’s Alleged Vitamin D Dethroning Is a Good Example of Why It Is Wise to Withhold Judgment on Widely Hyped Dietary Medical Benefit Findings — Ask Instead, Where Is the Evidence and What Is Its Quality? — and Do Not Confuse Markers and Associations with Causation (06 December 2013)

 

 

Unexamined Statistics Lead to Dumb Conclusions — the Questionability of Critics’ Use of the United States 26th Place OECD Life Expectancy Ranking — as Evidence for the Inferiority of Our Health Care System (21 November 2013)

 

 

Greed in Medicine Turns to Semantics for Help in Fooling the Unwary — the Culprit in this Case Is the American College of Cardiology — Its Intentionally Blatant Misuse of Language further Conceals Hundreds of Thousands of Medically Inappropriate Stent Placement Procedures — a Good Example of Professional Scumbaggery in Action (30 October 2013)

 

 

Frontline’s Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria Is a Wake Up Call regarding the End of the Antibiotic Era — and a Related Comment on Capitalism’s Inability to Do What Is Needs to Be Done in the Development of Antibiotics (23 October 2013)

 

 

“Not Physiologically Plausible” — Says a Study of 39 Years of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Data — and Why Has this Arguably Newsworthy Allegation Received No Coverage from the American Media? (22 October 2013)

 

On the Importance of Semantics in Framing an Argument — James Painter in Regard to Reframing the Foolish Public Dispute over What Is Causing Climate Change — and a Comment on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Inept Communication Style (04 October 2013)

 

 

Who Are You Going to Let Operate on Your Sarcoma Tumor? — a Disturbingly Ambiguous Finding from the University of California at Davis — which Serves as an Example of How the United States’ Lackadaisical Approach to Collecting Medical Data Causes Decision Problems for Patients (12 July 2013)

 

 

Harvard Professor of Medicine, Jerry Avorn, Points to the Same Phenomenon that I Repeatedly Do — We Cannot Unquestioningly Trust Clinical Medicine Guidelines because the People Writing them Are Often Profiting from their Financially Biased Recommendations (13 June 2013)

 

 

Hormone Replacement Therapy in Menopause — a Discussion of Risks and Benefits, with Guidelines, from the British Menopause Society — an Example of Helpful Medicine from a Group Unafraid to Tangle with Medical Ambiguity (28 May 2013)

 

 

The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) 2009 Mammography Screening Recommendations Were Understandably Ignored by the Medical Establishment and Its Patients (01 May 2013)

 

 

Mistaken or Missed Medical Diagnoses Resulted in $38 Billion in Malpractice Payouts between 1986 and 2010  — Because Most of these Claims Were Probably Legitimate, the Study’s Lead Author Thinks that Medicine Has a Significant Problem (23 April 2013)

 

 

The Office for Human Research Protections Caught 23 Universities and Medical Institutions in Producing Unethical Research Consent Protocols — Regarding Variably Oxygenating Preterm Infants — an Example of What Can Go Wrong, when Medical Professionals Don’t Think Critically — and Continuing Proof that the Institutional Review Board System that Is Supposed to Prevent these Abuses Doesn’t Work (11 April 2013)

 

 

The Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians Indicates that for Many Men, the Potential Harms of Undergoing PSA Screening Outweigh its Unreliable Forecasting Value (09 April 2013)

 

 

A Study Related to Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Use — Reveals How Little Critically Important Medical Research Information Makes It Out to Physicians and Patients (22 February 2013)

 

 

The Fact that It Is Difficult to Get Pricing Information for Major Health Care Procedures — Demonstrates Just How Out of Control American Health Care Costs Are — a Study Published in JAMA Internal Medicine (14 February 2013)

 

 

High Blood Pressure Patients — Meta-Analysis Shows that Dual Blockade of the Renin-Angiotensin System Does Not Reduce All-Cause Mortality — and Comes at the Price of Subjecting Many Patients to Noticeably Higher Risks for Hyperkalemia, Hypotension, and Renal Failure (29 January 2013)

 

 

National Research Council (NRC) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) Health Report — Shows How Far the United States Lags Affluent Nations — in Longevity and Accepted Indicators of Health Quality — Tables and Graphs Dramatically Make the Point (10 January 2013)

 

 

Another NRA Extremist Joins Wayne LaPierre in Advocating for Still More Gun Toting — this Time in Elementary Schools — Republican Representative Louie Gohmert and His Impractical Idea about How the Sandy Hook Elementary Tragedy Could Have Been Prevented (17 December 2012)

 

 

A Quotation from Dr. Mary-Claire King — President of the American Society of Human Genetics — Advocates for Scientists’ Duty to Speak Up in a Culture Drowning in Lies and Ignorance — but Her Words Illustrate the Chasm between Thoughtful Evidence-Seekers and the Majority of the Population (and Its Often Intentionally Misleading Leaders) (08 December 2012)

 

Uncertainty in Science — Mistaken Assumptions Regarding Genetic Mutation Rates May Have Significantly Overestimated the Rate of Evolutionary Change — and Four General Points about Public Confusion regarding the Scientific Process (30 October 2012)

 

 

Scientific Fraud and Misconduct Appear to Be Escalating — They Now Account for 67 Percent of Retracted Science and Medical Research Articles — Worse, Sophisticated Fraud Has Not Yet Been Uncovered (02 October 2012)

 

 

Bradyarrythmia (Bradycardia) — Meaning Pathologically Slow Heart Rate, including in this Instance, a Noticeably Irregular Pulse — the Apparent Result of My Newly Developed Hypersensitivity (Allergy) to Ibuprofen (Advil®) for Osteoarthritis — an Example of Lay Medical Analysis, Performed while Hiking a Colorado “Fourteener” (24 August 2012)

 

 

Reoperation Is Necessary in 20 Percent of Breast Conserving Cancer Surgeries in England — the American Rate May Be Similar — on Talking to Patients about Medical Uncertainty (08 August 2012)

 

 

Triumph! — The Gargantuan Olympics of Mind and Motivation — NASA’s Curiosity Lands on Mars (05 August 2012)

 

 

If NASA Pulls Curiosity’s Mars Landing Off — We Will Have a National Technological Tour de Force to be Proud of — for the First Time in a Very Long While (05 August 2012)

 

 

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Is Much Underdiagnosed in Primary Care, according to a Recent Study — Comments on the Difficulties Posed by Complexity in Medicine (12 July 2012)

 

 

Doctors Carrying Grief — Interviews with 20 Oncologists — Dealing with a Continual Stream of Death Is Tough (24 May 2012)

 

 

Freedom versus Public Health — an Easily Avoidable Measles Epidemic in Europe Has Weakened the World Effort to Rid the Planet of this too Often (Third World) Fatal Disease — Should There Be Limits on Ignorant People’s Perceived Right to Threaten Other People’s Health? (22 May 2012)

 

 

Stirrings of Alarm at Greed’s Rising Distortion of the Scientific Process — (a) The Institute of Medicine’s Warning about Unsubstantiated Medical “Omics” Tests and (b) Academic Psychology’s Courageous Recognition that Some of Its Studies Require Reproducibility Confirmation (16 April 2012)

 

 

Three Tips on Hiking with Severe Osteoarthritis (09 April 2012)

 

 

Outstanding Science Writing about Gravity and Climate from Germany — This Is the Way Science Communications Ought to Be Done in the United States (17 March 2012)

 

 

New Evidence for Antibiotic-Treated Livestock as a Breeding Ground for Drug-Resistant Bacteria that Spread to Humans (27 February 2012)

 

 

Faster than Light Neutrinos? — Probably Not — Faulty Wiring Connection Appears to Explain the Discrepancy between Accepted Theory and OPERA’s Calculations Late Last Year (22 February 2012)

 

 

An Underappreciated Aspect of Joint Surgery Is the Likelihood that Post-Surgery Performance Will Be Permanently Decreased (Compared to Pre-Injury Levels) in a Significant Proportion of Athletes — an Essay on the Utility of Avoiding Injury and the Psychological Helpfulness of Gratitude in Coping with Reduced Function Afterwards (14 February 2012)

 

 

Do Significant Numbers of Physicians Lie or Conceal Information from Patients? — Apparently Yes, Says a Survey from Health Affairs — and an Outrageous Example of Data Manipulation from a Science-Fraud-Committing Cancer Researcher (Anil Potti) (13 February 2012)

 

 

Good Science Writing Compared to Bad — an Excellent National Science Foundation Press Release Compared to the Opaque Abstract that it Is Based on — regarding an Ellesmere Island Study of the Permian-Triassic Boundary Extinction (09 February 2012)

 

 

Statins Use in Post-Menopausal Women Increases the Risk for Diabetes by as Much as 71 Percent (Compared to Women Who Did Not Take Statins) and 48 Percent (when Data Are Adjusted for Multiple Confounding Variables) — Findings from the Women’s Health Initiative and a Lay Overview by Dr. Mark Hyman (22 January 2012)

 

 

Benefit of Annual Prostate Cancer Screening in Low and Average Risk Men Is Still Uncertain — Due to Flaws, the Latest American Study Adds Nothing Especially Helpful to Our Thinking — Regarding the 13-Year Follow-Up to the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (07 January 2012)

 

 

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Reporter, John Fauber, Uncovered the Appearance of Blatant Corruption at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health — another Instance of the Medical-Industrial Complex’s Distortion of Objectively Delivered Medicine (06 January 2012)