October 25th, 2010 by DavedeBronkart in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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There’s an extraordinary new article in The Atlantic entitled “Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science.” It echos an excellent article in our Journal of Participatory Medicine (JoPM) a year ago by Richard W. Smith, 25-year editor of the British Medical Journal, entitled “In Search Of an Optimal Peer Review System.”
JoPM, Oct 21, 2009: “….most of what appears in peer-reviewed journals is scientifically weak.”
The Atlantic, Oct. 16, 2010: “Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong.”
JoPM 2009: “Yet peer review remains sacred, worshiped by scientists and central to the processes of science — awarding grants, publishing, and dishing out prizes.”
The Atlantic 2010: “So why are doctors — to a striking extent — still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice?”
Dr. Marcia Angell said something just as damning in December 2008 in the New York Review of Books: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” (Our post on Angell is here.)
What’s an e-patient to do? How are patients supposed to research if, as all three authorities say, much of what they read is scientifically weak? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at e-Patients.net*
July 18th, 2010 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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Today I refer you to an excellent post by Peter A. Lipson, M.D., at the blog Science Based Medicine entitled “HuffPo blogger claims skin cancer is conspiracy.”
The post focuses on an article by someone who contends that the link between sunlight and skin cancer is a conspiracy by dermatologists and the cosmetic dermatology industry. Dr. Lipson’s highly insightful analysis about the “interview” process and how doctors must act these days on behalf of their patients concludes:
This article shows a misunderstanding of journalistic ethics, medical ethics, and medical science. It’s a disaster. And it’s no surprise that it’s in the Huffington Post.
While this is a medicine story, my question relates to why an organization with a lot of great front-page news so frequently posts medical articles that are wrong and, sometimes, downright dangerous.
Read the article first, then read Dr. Lipson’s analysis.
Disclosure: I am an occasional contributor to Science Based Medicine but, like all contributors there, receive no compensation.
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
June 24th, 2010 by Harriet Hall, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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It’s boring to try to ferret out reliable health information from dry medical journals. It’s easier and more fun to watch a movie. A new movie promises to change the way you think about your health. To bring you breakthroughs that will transform your understanding of how to get well and stay well. To share the discoveries of leading researchers and health practitioners about miracle cures that traditional medicine can’t explain.
If this makes your baloney detector light up, good for you!
The Living Matrix: A Film on the New Science of Healing is an atrociously bad movie that falls squarely in the tradition of What the Bleep Do We Know? In his book Nonsense on Stilts, Massimo Pigliucci characterized the “Bleep” movie as “one of the most spectacular examples of a horribly tangled mess of science and nonsense,” and this new movie is more of the same. Bleep was just silly, but The Living Matrix is potentially dangerous because it might persuade patients to make poor decisions about their medical care. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
