Why Science is Mistrusted
By, SAURABH JHA MD
Recently, the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, in their press release, reported about the effect of surgical checklists in South Carolina. The release was titled, “South Carolina hospitals see major drop in post-surgical deaths with nation’s first proven statewide Surgical Safety Checklist Program.”
The Health News Review, for which I review, grades coverage of research in the media. Based on their objective criteria, the Harvard press release would not score highly.
The title exudes certainty – “nation’s first proven.” The study, not being a randomized controlled trial (RCT), though s...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 22, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: at RogueRad Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Why President Trump Should Use Foreign Aid For Health To Make America Great
The Trump administration recently proposed to make major cuts to US foreign assistance, including the $10.3 billion a year that the federal government spends to advance global health through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the United Nations.
As practitioners with more than 60 years of combined experience, we believe that the Trump administration is making a terrible mistake. Investing in global health is essential to the safety, security, and future prosperity of the United States, in addition to being a highl...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 17, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Robert Hecht and Sten Vermund Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Global Health Policy Population Health Public Health epidemics foreign aid humanitarian aid infectious diseases PEPFAR US foreign assistance Source Type: blogs
Our responsibility to refugee children
I am a pediatric resident working, like many residents, in a clinic that sees many of the most vulnerable children in our area. We see many refugees and immigrants coming through our clinic, including many from the countries named in President Trump’s immigration ban.
These refugee children often suffer from afflictions we rarely see amongst our usual patient population: severe vitamin and nutritional deficiencies, intestinal parasites, malaria. They are often thin and short from spending their formative years without sufficient nourishment, their blood full of lead from old pipes or pottery. They have nightmares like so...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 9, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/lacey-castellano" rel="tag" > Lacey Castellano, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Pediatrics Source Type: blogs
Bit by the Research Bug: Priscilla ’s Growth as a Scientist
This is the third post in a new series highlighting NIGMS’ efforts toward developing a robust, diverse and well-trained scientific workforce.
Credit: Christa Reynolds.
Priscilla Del Valle
Academic Institution: The University of Texas at El Paso
Major: Microbiology
Minors: Sociology and Biomedical Engineering
Mentor: Charles Spencer
Favorite Book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
Favorite Food: Tacos
Favorite music: Pop
Hobbies: Reading and drinking coffee
It’s not every day that you’ll hear someone say, “I learned more about parasites, and I thought, ‘This is so cool!’” But it’s al...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 28, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Christa Reynolds Tags: Being a Scientist Bacteria BUILD Infectious Diseases Profiles Training Source Type: blogs
Celebrating 10 years of Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites
Thank you for joining me today to celebrate 10 years of blogging with Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites! I can ' t believe that my very first entry on this blog was posted on March 25, 2007.For my celebration, I invited all readers to submit their artistic parasite creations, and was amazed by all of the outstanding entries I received. They are all below for your viewing pleasure. I entered the name of each person who submitted something into a hat and then randomly selected 5 names.And the winners are:Rachael LiesmanSidnei SilvaPrakhar VijayMelanie BoisKevin BarkerI will contact each winner separately about your prize (...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - March 26, 2017 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
What ’s the evidence for evidence-based medicine?
Patients come in all the time asking about things they read about on the internet, or heard about from a friend. It may be an unexpected explanation for their mysterious symptoms, or a new test, or an amazing treatment they want to try.
Heck, when I see things that I’m curious about, I research them, and sometimes I try them, too.
When I was hugely pregnant and due and couldn’t stand even one more day as an awkward whale, I tried red raspberry leaf tea. When breastfeeding proved both difficult and painful, I tried …oh. just about everything, actually. Fenugreek tea, lanolin ointment, chamomile poultices. When I w...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 13, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Monique Tello, MD, MPH Tags: Complementary and alternative medicine Health care Managing your health care Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
An Efficient Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of Dihydroartemisinic Aldehyde
AngewchemAn Efficient Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of Dihydroartemisinic Aldehyde: Artemisinin from the plant Artemisia annua is the most potent pharmaceutical for the treatment of malaria. In the plant, the sesquiterpene cyclase amorphadiene synthase, a cytochrome ‐dependent CYP450,... (Source: Organometallic Current)
Source: Organometallic Current - March 13, 2017 Category: Chemistry Tags: Biocatalytic Enzyme catalyzed Terpenoids Source Type: blogs
Should patients order their own lab tests?
Knowledge is power. Increasingly, patients are demanding and receiving access to levers in the medical machine that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. The informed consent process, which I support, can overwhelm ordinary patients and families with conflicting and bewildering options.
Television and the airwaves routinely advertise prescription drugs directly to the public. Consider the strategy of direct-to-consumer drug marketing when millions of dollars are spent advertising a drug that viewers are not permitted to purchase themselves. The public can now with a few clicks on a laptop, research individual physi...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 16, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/michael-kirsch" rel="tag" > Michael Kirsch, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Heart Primary care Source Type: blogs
What Experts in Law and Medicine Have to Say About the Cost of Drugs
By ANDY ORAM
Pharmaceutical drug costs impinge heavily on consumers’ consciousness, often on a monthly basis, and have become such a stress on the public that they came up repeatedly among both major parties during the U.S. presidential campaign–and remain a bipartisan rallying cry. A good deal of the recent conference named Health Law Year in P/Review, at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, covered issues with a bearing on drug costs. It’s interesting to take the academic expertise from that conference–and combine it with a bit of commo...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 2, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Andy Oram Drug Pricing Pharma Source Type: blogs
The Case for Defeating Death by Aging
This flashy popular press article in the modern style of scrolling illustrates an important point: that it is actually quite difficult for newcomers to build a coherent picture from the varied claims and lines of research taking place in the field of longevity science. The thing that they are missing, and which takes some time to put together for yourself, is enough of an understanding of the underlying biology to make estimates of likelihood of success for given project versus the plausible scale of the outcome. Will it produce a lengthening of life or postponement of age-related disease, and for how long? Absent this und...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 19, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
NLM Seeks Partners to Evaluate Malaria Screener ’ s Efficacy
How well will a new malaria screener work? We want to know. NLM and our collaborators developed an automated system for detecting the malaria parasite that runs on smart phones. Working with the universities of Oxford, Mahidol, and Missouri, we developed a way to use the phone’s camera and an adapter to connect the phone… (Source: NLM In Focus)
Source: NLM In Focus - January 13, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Posted by NLM in Focus Tags: Research & Development Source Type: blogs
Paperfuge: A Low-Cost Power-Free Centrifuge for Rapid Diagnostics
Centrifuges are universal machines routinely used in every lab in order to spin solutions at high speeds to separate liquids, such as blood, into different components. While they are easily available in developed countries, they are expensive and bulky to be used in developing countries, especially where stable electrical supply is a luxury. The field of rapid diagnostics is getting cheaper thanks to frequent technological advancements and improving manufacturing techniques.
Sometimes, though, looking to an age-old practice might hold all the solutions needed for a modern-day problem. A team from Stanford University, fro...
Source: Medgadget - January 12, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Rukmani Sridharan Tags: Diagnostics Pathology Public Health Source Type: blogs
The Framework Convention On Global Health: A Call For Leadership From The Global Health Trio
In the current issue of Health Affairs, we explore a pivotal moment of opportunity and peril in global health, while identifying the leadership challenges of “the global health trio” — the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Each of the challenges we pose share a common thread: poor and other marginalized populations are most vulnerable to current and emerging health risks. Maternal and child mortality, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, health harms from climate change, and mass migration — all disproportionately affect those who are poor and less educated, indig...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 12, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Eric A. Friedman and Lawrence O. Gostin Tags: Featured Global Health Policy Public Health antimicrobial resistance Ebola Source Type: blogs
Global Health Policy: A Health Affairs Resource Hub
While many readers are familiar with Health Affairs’ content focused on the many facets of health and health care in the United States, we also publish extensively on global health policy.
Global Health Policy
In any given year, Health Affairs publishes about 45 peer-reviewed global health policy articles in the journal, including at least one full theme issue on a topic in global health policy. In 2016, for example, we published a special issue featuring some of the latest global research on vaccines. Add to all that the frequent commentary and analysis taking place on Health Affairs Blog with the aim of promoting a...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 23, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Health Affairs Tags: Elsewhere@ Health Affairs Global Health Policy Source Type: blogs
