Politically Driven Public Health Disinformation - the Latest Examples: Dread Infections, Porn Causing White Male Impotence
(Source: Health Care Renewal)
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 23, 2019 Category: Health Management Tags: disinformation health policy propaganda public health Source Type: blogs
The Placebo Effect, Digested – 10 Amazing Findings
By Christian Jarrett
The placebo effect usually triggers an eye-brow raise or two among even the most hard-nosed of skeptics. We may not be able to forecast the future or move physical objects with our minds, but the placebo effect is nearly as marvellous (Ben Goldacre once called it the “coolest, strangest thing in medicine”).
The term “placebo effect” is short-hand for how our mere beliefs about the effectiveness of an inert treatment or intervention can lead to demonstrable health benefits and cognitive changes – an apparently incontrovertible demonstration of the near-magical power of mind ove...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - March 11, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Feature Source Type: blogs
Bloomberg Unwittingly Vindicates Stigler
In a recent Bloomberg Governmentarticle, Cheryl Bolen pushes back against what she perceives to be two myths of the much-touted Trump deregulatory agenda: that deregulation is in fact occurring, and that repeal of existing regulations actually helps businesses. I shall address these in reverse order, first demonstrating that most regulation is a net drag on the economy, and then mustering evidence to the effect that the Trump administration ’s deregulatory push is real indeed.Do Regulations Hurt Businesses?Celebrating deregulatory efforts concedes the premise that the typical regulation is on net more costly than it is b...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 26, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Derek Bonett Source Type: blogs
Stop Your Mind from Broadcasting Fake News
We who experience anxiety, depression and self-hatred know fake news better than anyone.
At a recent rally in Washington DC, Catholic students from Kentucky’s Covington High School encountered Native American elder Nathan Phillips. Things occurred. Words were said. Spectators captured images. Within minutes, the media went wild.
Divergent factions accused each other of bigotry, harassment, violently punishable crimes — and the ultimate modern-day offense: spreading fake news.
As now occurs so often, amidst a maelstrom of ever-more-adjustible pictures and words, real-life events become hazy accounts, transferred...
Source: World of Psychology - February 7, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Psych Central Guest Author Tags: Brain and Behavior Publishers Self-Esteem Self-Help Spirituality & Health anxiety Depression Fake News Self-Hatred Source Type: blogs
Hormonal therapy for aggressive prostate cancer: How long is enough?
This study reaffirms what many clinicians have put into practice: longer duration hormonal therapy in appropriately selected patient populations provides a greater benefit,” said Dr. Marc Garnick, the Gorman Brothers Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and editor in chief of HarvardProstateKnowledge.org. “Prior studies using three years of hormonal therapy have also shown this, but it is important to recognize that some men may have significantly delayed return of the body’s testosterone upon completion of the therapy — a fact that needs to be discussed when con...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - January 28, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Living With Prostate Cancer Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
Psychotherapy: When not doing is doing it best
It ’s hard to sit with someone who is crying or angry or yearning or silent for long periods and not want to do something to make them feel better, to break the tension in the room. But most of the time if that desire to do something is acted upon, the outcome is not what we hope. For me, this is a l esson I have had to learn again and again.I have been thinking about this a lot lately. What comes to me is the image of an infant in the throes of colic. You try everything to make them stop because that cry is distressing, because it makes you feel impotent and frustrated and even angry. Rock the baby. Pat the baby. Sing. ...
Source: Jung At Heart - January 14, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Index Funds: Promise or Peril?
This is Part I in a two-part series in which I address the argument that: 1) index funds are seizing an outsized influence over publicly traded corporations, and 2) that they are wielding this influence so as to reduce intra-industry competition between firms in their portfolio. In this post, I summarize the argument and offer some criticisms as to why this influence may not be as significant as it appears. In Part II, I will proceed to argue that, to the extent that index funds have indeed acquired some influence over the firms in their portfolio, this may in fact be a salutary development.I. “Common Ownership” and ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 13, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Derek Bonett Source Type: blogs
Q & A with Dr. Daniel Rukstalis on prostatic urethral lift for enlarged prostates
A new procedure that relieves symptoms without causing sexual side effects
As men get older, their prostates often get bigger and block the flow of urine out of the bladder. This condition, which is called benign prostatic hyperplasia, causes bothersome symptoms. Since men can’t fully empty their bladders, they experience sudden and frequent urges to urinate. Treatments can relieve these symptoms, but not without troubling side effects: pharmaceutical BPH treatments cause dizziness, fatigue, and retrograde ejaculation, meaning that semen gets diverted to the bladder during orgasm instead of being ejected from the body. S...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 25, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: BPH Prostate Knowledge Q & A HPK Source Type: blogs
As I ’ve always suspected, Health Care = Communism + Frappuccinos
By MATTHEW HOLT
Happy 15th birthday THCB! Yes, 15 years ago today this little blog opened for business and changed my life (and at least impacted a few others). Later this week we are going to celebrate and tell you a bit more about what the next 15 years (really?) of THCB might look like. But for now, I’m rerunning a few of my favorite pieces from the mid-2000s, the golden age of blogging. Today I present “Health Care = Communism + Frappuccinos”, one of my favorites about the relationship between government and private sector originally published here on Jan7, 2005. And like the Medicare one from last we...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 12, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Matthew Holt OP-ED 15th Birthday Celebration Commumism Frappuchinos Source Type: blogs
A Tale of 2 FDAs
By ANISH KOKA
Frances Oldham Kelsey by all accounts was not mean to have a consequential life. She was born in Canada in 1914, at a time women were meant to be seen and not heard. Nonetheless, an affinity for science eventually lead to a masters in pharmacology from the prestigious McGill University. Her first real break came after she was accepted for PhD level work in the pharmacology lab of a professor at the University of Chicago. An esteemed professor was starting a pharmacology lab and needed assistants, and the man from Canada seemed to have a perfect resume to fit. That’s right, I said man. France...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 4, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: anish_koka Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
A Public-Private Partnership to Fix Health Care
By BILL ROSENBERG
The Administration proposal that would enable small employers to band together to purchase health insurance by forming Association Health Plans has several good features. Large companies do pay about 15% less, apples-to-apples, for health insurance than small businesses because they negotiate lower administrative fees, get larger discounts on health care prices and avoid premium taxes and risk charges by self-insuring. Allowing small business to replicate what boils down to volume discounts also appeals politically to many as a market-based alternative to government intervention. Reliance on Association H...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 11, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Matthew Holt Tags: OP-ED Trump's Health Bill Rosenberg Medicare public-private partnerships Source Type: blogs
MedStar Franklin Center: The Case Against Global Capitation
By NIRAN AL-AGBA, MD
Baltimore County, Maryland is one hour north of Washington DC, where politicians appear impotent to contain runaway healthcare expenditures. In January 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in partnership with the state of Maryland, piloted an “All Payer Model,” where every insurer, including Medicare and Medicaid, paid a fixed annual amount irrespective of inpatient or outpatient hospital utilization. Maryland agreed to transition hospitals from fee-for-service arrangements to this global capitation model over five years.
Capitation, in general, reimburses a fixed amount...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 7, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Would You Want To Know Whether You ’re At Risk For Alzheimer’s?
Do genetic tests help in preparing for potential future health issues or open Pandora’s box full of concerns, worries and hypochondriac thoughts? Would you want to know your genetic fate? Whether you are at risk for Alzheimer’s or a chronic disease 30 years in advance? Would you want to live with this kind of information? Would you take the BRCA test to find out that you are at risk for breast cancer? What would you do if you were? The Medical Futurist team contemplated situations requiring hard, life-altering decisions. What would you do?
Our genetic heritage carries secrets that are difficult to process
In Season 8 o...
Source: The Medical Futurist - April 28, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Bioethics Genomics alzheimer disease DNA dna testing doctor-patient doctor-patient relationship DTC future genetics Huntington's patient empowerment personal genomics Source Type: blogs
Our brains rapidly and automatically process opinions we agree with as if they are facts
By Christian Jarrett
In a post-truth world of alternative facts, there is understandable interest in the psychology behind why people are generally so wedded to their opinions and why it is so difficult to change minds.
We already know a lot about the deliberate mental processes that people engage in to protect their world view, from seeking out confirmatory evidence (the “confirmation bias“) to questioning the methods used to marshal contradictory evidence (the scientific impotence excuse).
Now a team led by Michael Gilead at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev report in Social Psychological and Personality Sci...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - April 20, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Decision making Thought Source Type: blogs
