http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/ Publisher, HealthNewsReview.org
schwitz@umn.edu ]]> en-us 2009-11-24T15:28:50-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/disease-mongeri-2.html A Bloomberg story reminds us that 6 years ago journalist Ray Moynihan in the British Medical Journal called female sexual dysfunction (FSD) "the freshest, clearest example we have" of a disease created by pharmaceutical companies to make healthy people think... Disease mongering schwitz 2009-11-24T15:28:50-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/american-colleg.html The American College of Physicians - the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the United States - has issued this statement: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations on mammography, which were published in ACP's... Evidence-based medicine schwitz 2009-11-24T14:49:28-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/women-over-esti.html The disconnect between the facts and women's beliefs about breast cancer was shown again in a USA Today story. Excerpts: "A vast majority of American women plan to ignore controversial new recommendations about mammograms, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows. The... Cancer schwitz 2009-11-24T09:58:03-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/rochester-freel.html Paul Scott has an opinion piece in the Rochester Post-Bulletin in which he criticizes what he calls the Mayo Clinic's "vague and surprisingly unprepared" response to the US Preventive Services Task Force's mammography recommendations. "Taking unspecified issue with "the modeling... Cancer schwitz 2009-11-23T09:53:49-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/10-things-that.html Many of us might rather move on and end all of the discussion about the US Preventive Task Force's mammography recommendations last week. But I think it's essential that we reflect on ten things that stand out from last week:... Health care journalism schwitz 2009-11-23T08:08:52-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/multiple-reason.html John Crewdson in The Atlantic: "The current controversy over the task force's report owes much to the media's confusing coverage, some of which has been misinformed, including by TV doctors who ought to know better. The confusion has been... Cancer schwitz 2009-11-21T07:00:00-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/howard-kurtz-do.html Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz strayed beyond media observations and injected his own comments about the US Preventive Services Task Force breast screening recommendations. He calls the task force recommendation a "don't-worry-be-happy-till-you're-50 finding." He defines "the essential problem with... Cancer schwitz 2009-11-20T09:51:50-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/five-popular-fa.html My friend Robert Davis writes about five popular falsehoods he's seen this week in the "the widespread confusion, consternation, and even anger that the new (US Preventive Services Task Force mammography) guidelines have unleashed." His five: 1. This is all... Cancer schwitz 2009-11-20T09:39:06-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/kudos-to-nancy.html I am a frequent critic of TV health news - and especially of much of this week's TV coverage of the US Preventive Services Task Force mammography recommendations. So I want to make special note this week of some of... Cancer schwitz 2009-11-20T09:19:33-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/the-history-of.html As I've written earlier, the reaction from some people that this week's US Preventive Services Task Force recommendations were "surprising" or "coming out of nowhere" are themselves surprising. Anyone - certainly any informed health care consumer and certainly any journalist-... Health care journalism schwitz 2009-11-20T08:43:36-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/people-should-h.html For a long time, I've urged health care journalists to refer to the recommendations of the US Preventive Services Task Force and to educate readers/viewers about how the group operates. Perhaps one of the reasons the task force's recommendations this... Consumer anger/confusion schwitz 2009-11-20T08:13:08-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/minnpost-column.html More on the reactions to the US Preventive Services Task Force mammography recommendations. Susan Perry writes on MinnPost.com about: "... the rampant, breathless fear-mongering rhetoric that has framed much of the media's response to the recommendations. ... On ABC's daytime... Cancer schwitz 2009-11-20T07:55:57-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/in-mammography.html I can't tell you how many times I've used that line in interviews recently. So it was refreshing to see someone else - Steven Pearlstein - use it today in the Washington Post. (* Actually, either he or the copy... Cancer schwitz 2009-11-20T07:32:37-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/cnn-takes-advoc.html Not only did Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN show his imbalanced perspective on the US Preventive Services Task Force breast screening recommendation. But CNN's non-physician medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, also offered her opinion on the air. She said: "This task... Consumer anger/confusion schwitz 2009-11-19T07:30:00-06:00 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/2009/11/call-for-nih-to.html I was among 100 researchers, clinicians and ethicists who this week signed and sent a letter (pdf file) to the National Institutes of Health asking them to fund research on medical ethics, conflicts of interest and industry influence on prescribing... Conflicts of interest schwitz 2009-11-19T07:00:00-06:00