Are doctors being duped through medical education? Could social media help?

I made a discovery this week about the novel anticoagulant medications, dabigatran (Pradaxa), rivaroxaban (Xarelto), apixaban (Eliquis) and edoxaban (Lixiana). I was looking into the often-asked question of how these new drugs compare to the old standard, warfarin. The discovery felt like a Eureka moment. I ran it by my stats guy–my son–and a couple of colleagues, and they confirmed, that my discovery was truth. I’m working on a post now that discusses the details of how the medical world has been misled about these drugs. Stay tuned. Medical Education: For now, though, this revelation got me thinking about medical education. How does it happen that doctors (and patients) can be misled? Many smart people think medical misinformation occurs in large part because industry pervades medical education. Examples abound, but look no further than the dronedarone (Multaq) blemish. The short story is that dronedarone was touted as a new wonder drug for AF. The marketing held it up as a metabolite of amiodarone that had the mother drug’s efficacy but none of its toxicity–an amiodarone light. This was hogwash. The drug was evaluated in studies designed to obfuscate. It was hyped by thought leaders with deep financial ties to the drug maker. And then, even when trial data and real-world experience demonstrated inefficacy, the hype persisted. Thought leaders continued to make dinner rounds in cities throughout Europe and the US. Not until the PALLAS trial show...
Source: Dr John M - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: blogs