The palliative caregiver shines a balanced and soft compassionate light
I never realized the true meaning of palliative care amidst the harried practice of emergency medicine. The pressure being placed on me to do more often becomes the same expectation I place on patients to receive more treatment.
Gloria, the wife of my patient with terminal mesothelioma, shed a light on palliative care for me with the insightful words, “We know that there is no cure — we just want to even things out and buy a little more time for Andy.” This was a reasonable directive: Take a breath, ease the situation, create a smooth transition and offer some peace of mind. The art of palliative medicine is the ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 21, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Kevin Haselhorst, MD Tags: Physician Palliative care Source Type: blogs
Sex, Lies and Cheeseburgers
By AL LEWIS
Number of deaths attributable to eating processed meat, according to the World Health Organization (WHO): 34,000
Number of people struck by lightning annually: 240,000
And yet the WHO generated a huge headline by saying that eating red and processed meat could increase your risk of colon cancer by 18%.
Let us assume that they are right. (And we will let the trade associations debate them on the scientific merits of that 34,000 figure.) Even if they are right, this is a perfect example of confusing an increase in relative risk of one disease with absolute risk of dying. To use the lightning example, you probably...
Source: The Health Care Blog - October 28, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Go ahead: Eat your meat
“Reduce your intake of cholesterol, fat, and saturated fat.”
“Use more polyunsaturated fats.”
“Move more and eat less.”
“Oats are heart healthy.”
“Follow a balanced diet.”
“Eat more healthy whole grains.”
Well, add yet another “proven” statement of purported nutritional fact to this sad list of nutritional blunders: “Red meat is a carcinogen,” as was concluded by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC. Release of this analysis prompted the usual over-the-top headlines and exaggerations, such as NPR’s Alis...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - October 27, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle bowel flora cancer carcinogen gluten grains red meat Source Type: blogs
Pfizer's Latest International Pfiascos - Charges of Anti-Competitive Practices, Inflated Prices, Deception and Secrecy
Many big health care organizations seem to just be unable to keep out of trouble, and the bigger they are, the more kinds of trouble. Pfizer Inc, considered to be one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, has supplied us with plenty of stories. Enough new stories about Pfizer have accumulated since last year to do a roundup. Presented in chronological order....Italy Demands Damages from Pfizer for Anti-Trust ViolationsThis story came out in May, 2014, via Reuters,Italy said on Wednesday it was seeking more than a billion euros in damages from multinational drug companies following a...
Source: Health Care Renewal - September 13, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: adverse effects antitrust deception executive compensation health care prices legal settlements marketing Pfizer suppression of medical research vaccines Source Type: blogs
Study on Potential Toxicity of E-Cigarette Flavorings Produces Unwarranted Scare
A study published in the journal Tobacco Control this past April has produced an unwarranted scare about the potential toxicity of the flavorings in electronic cigarettes.(See: Tierney PA, et al. Flavour chemicals in electronic cigarette fluids. Tobacco Control. Published online ahead of print on April 15, 2015. DOI: 0.1136/tobaccocontrol-2014-052175.)The study used gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to analyze the chemical constituents in e-liquids of various flavors. It appears that 30 different e-liquid flavors were tested. Multiple flavors of two brands of disposable e-cigarettes (Blu and NJOY) were tested along with...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - July 16, 2015 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
Watson will replace me? Not a chance!
By PO-HAO CHEN, MD
Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick predicted supercomputers more intelligent than humans. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the HAL states, with typical human immodesty, “The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made… We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.” Forty years later, IBM’s Watson pummeled humans in Jeopardy – a distinctly human game.
Watson is a big shot oncology fellow at MD Anderson – he is already impressing nurses and the attendings. The supercomputer presented patients in the morning rounds, parsed data wit...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 16, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Tech THCB Source Type: blogs
Why Don’t We Take Tanning As Seriously As Tobacco?
With May being Skin Cancer Awareness Month and in tandem with our event Wednesday co-hosted with the Congressional Families Cancer Prevention Program, The Hazards and Allure of Indoor Tanning Beds on College Campuses we are running a series on skin cancer. Be sure to check back daily for posts on skin cancer including how you prevent and detect it. Enjoy!
In 2009, upon review of the science on tanning beds and cancer, the International Agency for Research on Cancer assigned tanning beds a class 1 carcinogen, joining tobacco and asbestos in the highest classification of harm. In spite of this development, skin cancer rates ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - May 19, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Cancer prevent cancer foundation Source Type: blogs
None Dare Call It Health Care Corruption
... even when allegedly a prominent academic physician's traded referrals of cancer patients to a law firm, resulting in referral fees to a prominent politician who worked for the firm, for government research grants to the physician's foundation and another foundation on whose board he sat, and a job for his son at yet another non-profit organization.***Health care corruption, remains a largely taboo topic, especially when it occurs in developed countries like the US. Searching PubMed or major medical and health care journals at best will reveal a few articles on health care corruption, nearly all about corrupti...
Source: Health Care Renewal - January 28, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: anechoic effect bribery cancer Columbia University crime fraud health care corruption Source Type: blogs
Sheldon Silver and the Price of Doing Science
Walter Olson
Rumors of ethics problems have long swirled around long-time New York assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, many of them connected with his role as a private lawyer associated with a personal-injury firm whose interests extend to many government- and policy-related matters. This morning, according to multiple reports, the FBI took Silver into custody following a corruption investigation.
The complaint (courtesy WSJ, more here and here) alleges improprieties with Silver’s income both from a real estate law firm patronized by developers and from asbestos-injury legal work. On the latt...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 22, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
MVNHS© Rocket (but not Cancer) Surgeons
First, the good news: 66 year old Roger Mollison is cancer free.That's good news because the folks who run the Much Vaunted National Health Service© don't exactly have a great track record when it comes to cancer care. The not-so-great news is that, despite their "best" efforts, they couldn't cure Mr Mollison of cancer.Mostly because he didn't have cancer in the first place:"Doctors at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee told Mollison to prepare for the final nine months of his life after diagnostic testing revealed a deadly case of mesothelioma"Imagine the sheer horror of receiving such a diagnosis, and then undergoing years of...
Source: InsureBlog - August 28, 2014 Category: Medical Lawyers and Insurers Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, August 14, 2014
From MedPage Today:
Beyond Asbestos: Autoimmunity, Pollution, and Particles. Recently, I wrote an article about some interesting research being done by Jean Pfau, PhD, of Idaho State University suggesting that workers who had been exposed to asbestos at the now-shuttered Zonolite mine in Montana were developing an as-yet undescribed autoimmune condition characterized by severe pain and restricted breathing.
High-Dose Aspirin After MI Still Common. Many patients with myocardial infarction (MI) were discharged from U.S. hospitals on high-dose aspirin, even if they were at high risk for bleeding.
WHO Ethics Panel Affirms Us...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 14, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Heart Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, July 30, 2014
From MedPage Today:
Do Decision Aids Help Patients Make Difficult Choices? Decision aids designed to help patients make general healthcare choices, such as selecting a treatment location, provide some help, but condition-specific aids may provide the most useful information for patients and families.
Asbestos Revisited: A New Autoimmune Disease? In the small town of Libby in northwestern Montana, prospectors in 1916 discovered an unusual mineral known as vermiculite that appeared to be resistant to fire after initial exposure to high heat.
Nutritionists Pan ASN Processed Foods Statement. A new scientific statement from t...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 30, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Rheumatology Source Type: blogs
Biden: "I Should Have Had One Republican Kid To Go Out And Make Money"
Walter Olson
The Washington Free Beacon reports that Vice President Joseph Biden made his audience “burst into laughter” at the Urban League gathering in Cincinnati when he cracked “I should have had one Republican kid to go out and make money,” noting that instead he has a daughter who went into social work.
And well should they have burst into laughter. It was a joke, folks! In real life, Biden’s son Beau has worked as an asbestos plaintiff’s lawyer, which is much more of a moneymaking venture than most “Republican kids” ever get near. Both he and another Biden son have been ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 29, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
53!
Yep, today’s my birthday. I’m 53 years old! I feel a bit like the puffin in my current header photo (by the way, I took that photo at Skokholm Island, Wales, UK, last week) — young, happy, confident, strong, with my wings spread out…and with a bunch of sand eels (er…bleah) in my beak…
And to think that when, in the fall of 2005, I was diagnosed with (smoldering) myeloma, I thought I’d be dead within four or five years…That’s what my hematologist told us…
I guess I’ve proved him wrong, eh?
Back then, in 2005 that is, I didn’t know much about myelo...
Source: Margaret's Corner - July 18, 2014 Category: Cancer Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll Source Type: blogs
TWiV 290: Baylor goes viral
On episode #290 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent meets up with Janet Butel and Rick Lloyd at Baylor College of Medicine to talk about their work on polyomaviruses and virus induced stress.
You can find TWiV #290 at www.twiv.tv. (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - June 22, 2014 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology cancer coxsackievirus mesothelioma P bodies picornavirus poliovirus polyomavirus stress granules SV40 viral Source Type: blogs
