April 29th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in News, Quackery Exposed
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On the NPR Shots blog, Scott Hensley reports: “This Just In: Fake News Is No Way To Sell Acai Berries.” Excerpt:
“Some marketers of weight-loss products containing acai berries are also purveyors of news you shouldn’t use, the Federal Trade Commission says.
The FTC has asked federal courts to put a stop to the activities of 10 different outfits that the commission alleges use “fake news websites” to tout acai berry weight-loss products.
Chances are you’ve stumbled across the sites, which often sport the logos of major mainstream news organizations, such as ABC, CNN and Consumer Reports. (See this example posted by the FTC.)
Take, for example the FTC’s complaint against Beony International LLC, a company based in San Diego.
The company allegedly ran sites with names such as “News 6 News Alerts,” “Health News Health Alerts,” and “Health 6 Beat Health News.” The sites feature purportedly objective investigative reports of acai products by reporters, who supposedly tried the stuff “and experienced dramatic and positive results.”
The blog post also includes links to examples and complaints posted by the FTC, a Consumer Reports feature on acai scams and this Better Business Bureau video warning about free trial scams.
Unfortunately, every day in our nationwide scan of health news stories, we see REAL news stories that look like advertising. So advertising that is made to look like news is not surprising.
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
April 24th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Health Policy, Opinion
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On the US News & World report website, Dr. Kenny Lin writes as a physician and a concerned observer about “Dangers of Incidentaloma: Why To Think Twice Before Getting a CT Scan.”
It’s an important issue. Give it a look.
Lin’s blog, “The Common Sense Family Doctor,” is also worth visiting. Recently he cited one of my alltime favorite essays, “The Last Well Person,” by Dr. Clifton Meador, who wrote in 1994:
“The demands of the public for definitive wellness are colliding with the public’s belief in a diagnostic system that can find only disease. A public in dogged pursuit of the unobtainable, combined with clinicians whose tools are powerful enough to find very small lesions, is a setup for diagnostic excess. And false positives are the arithmetically certain result of applying a disease-defining system to a population that is mostly well. … If the behavior of doctors and the public continues unabated, eventually every well person will be labeled sick. Like the invalids, we will all be assigned to one diagnosis-related group or another. How long will it take to find every single lesion in every person? Who will be the last well person?”
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
April 16th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Health Tips
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Beyond just evaluation and constructive criticism of news stories, we want to reach out to help journalists.
We know they often struggle with reporting on the costs of treatments, tests, products and procedures. It’s reflected in the facts: after 5 years and nearly 1,500 stories reviewed, we don’t like to report that more than 70 percent of stories fail to adequately address the costs of the stuff they’re covering.
So we talked with journalists and others to assemble our first stab (and that’s all it is – a first stab) at an online list of resources to help journalists explore the costs of health care products and approaches.
There are some links to websites, names, email addresses and phone numbers.
This is just one of many primers and resources offered on our site. Here’s a screen shot of the listing of primers available in the Toolkit. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
April 8th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Opinion, Research
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There’s an important paper in PLoS Medicine, “Strategies and Practices in Off-Label Marketing of Pharmaceuticals: A Retrospective Analysis of Whistleblower Complaints.” The authors provide this background on off-label marketing:
“An important part of the (drug) approval process is the creation of the “drug label,” a detailed report that specifies the exact diseases and patient groups in which the drug can be used and the approved doses of the drug.
Physicians can, however, legally use FDA-approved drugs ‘off-label.’ That is, they can prescribe drugs for a different disease, in a different group of patients, or at a different dose to that specified in the drug’s label. However, because drugs’ manufacturers stand to benefit financially from off-label use through increased drugs sales, the FDA prohibits them from directly promoting unapproved uses. The fear is that such marketing would encourage the widespread use of drugs in settings where their efficacy and safety has not been rigorously tested, exposing patients to uncertain benefits and possible adverse effects.”
The authors conclude: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
April 6th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Health Policy, News
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A study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that “that men in their seventies had prostate cancer screening nearly twice as often as men in their early fifties, who are more likely to benefit from prostate cancer detection and treatment.” An American Society for Clinical Oncology news release includes this quote:
“Our findings show a high rate of elderly and sometimes ill men being inappropriately screened for prostate cancer. We’re concerned these screenings may prompt cancer treatment among elderly men who ultimately have a very low likelihood of benefitting the patient and paradoxically can cause more harm than good,” said senior author Scott Eggener, MD, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Chicago. “We were also surprised to find that nearly three-quarters of men in their fifties were not screened within the past year. These results emphasize the need for greater physician interaction and conversations about the merits and limitations of prostate cancer screening for men of all ages.”
The US Preventive Services Task Force states that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of prostate cancer screening in men younger than age 75 years, and it recommends against screening for prostate cancer in men age 75 years or older.
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
