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Too Much Journalistic Enthusiasm Again For The Artificial Heart

Here we go again. And believe me, as one who’s covered the artificial heart experiments of the 1980s, I feel like I’ve been through this countless times before — but so have health news readers.

Another entrepeneurial team announces hopes for its artificial heart device and some news coverage trumpets the company’s announcement:

NYT banner.jpg

NYT Artificial Heart Story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But this was in The New York Times! Now, granted — it’s in a “Global Business” section. But we don’t see why that removes the need for more scrutiny, for independent perspective, and for a better discussion of evidence. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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