Defensive medicine, the practice of ordering tests and referrals more out of concern for liability than for the benefit of patients health, is an expensive convention. According to a recent survey of orthopedic surgeons, 30 percent of the tests and referrals ordered in this specialty are unnecessary, resulting in an estimated cost of greater than $2 billion in the U.S. each year. The survey was conducted by Vanderbilt University s Dr. A.
Search
On the topic of unnecessary screenings, a recent personal vignette in the Archives of Internal Medicine explores the issue of overuse of PSA testing for prostate cancer from a deeply personal perspective. Dr. Charles Bennett, an oncologist who specializes in prostate cancer, tells the story of his own experience with PSA testing, as well as his regrets about this screening and the consequences that followed.
What s the largest source of salt in our diets? Is it potato chips? French fries? Neither of these, says a recent report form the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Actually, bread and rolls provide us with the greatest amount of salt in our diets.
Josh Bloom, Medical Progress Today 3/20/12
The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Neurotic
[E]xclusive use of DTPs [dissolvable tobacco products] would greatly reduce risk for smoking caused disease compared with regular use of cigarettes. While we at ACSH make this point on a regular basis, this time, this statement actually comes from an FDA advisory panel.
Traveling to a high altitude destination and prone to getting sick? A recent study found that ibuprofen may help prevent symptoms of altitude sickness, which can include headaches, dizziness, insomnia, nausea, and vomiting.
As crop growers endeavor to meet the increasing global demand for food, fuel, and livestock feed, a longstanding debate has intensified: Do the higher levels of herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers used in agriculture today pose an environmental hazard? Groups ranging from the Union of Concerned Scientists to the Natural Resources Defense Council are lobbying both Congress and the EPA to address these concerns.
When it comes to dispensing inaccurate information about the Plan B One-Step morning after pill, many pharmacies are guilty as charged. In a rather disconcerting new study published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers from the Boston Medical Center at the Boston University School of Medicine conducted an undercover survey in which they called over 940 pharmacies in five U.S. cities, posing as either 17-year-old girls or as physicians assisting these girls.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest s (CSPI) renewed war against a caramel coloring ingredient in sodas, known as 4-methylimidazole (4-MI), is making headlines again, unfortunately. (Although we do appreciate that at least Reuters had the good sense to emphasize the FDA s refutation of CSPI s latest claims.)To refresh your memory: Last year, CSPI petitioned the FDA to declare 4-MI a carcinogen and ban it from sodas.
The dangers of unregulated supplements have attracted renewed attention following the recent deaths of two U.S. soldiers who were reportedly taking an amphetamine-like substance that is marketed as a dietary supplement. Yet as ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross and Medpage Today editor Dr.
According to a paper in yesterday's Journal of Clinical Oncology, the 5 year survival rate of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (the most common form) has continued its upward trajectory, and now stands at 90 percent--fairly amazing considering that it was almost always fatal as recently as the 1960s.
Could obesity impact a man s fertility? To explore this possibility, a new meta-analysis, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine included nearly 10,000 men to determine whether obesity had any adverse affect on sperm count.
Up until the early 1980s, a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) the most common form of childhood leukemia was considered a death sentence. Now a new study finds that five-year survival rates for kids with ALL rose to 90 percent in the period 2000 to 2005.
Recent research is raising questions about the benefits of regular aspirin for the prevention of cardiovascular problems in people who have never had such problems. Yet new research is suggesting that, when considering the benefits of daily aspirin, maybe it s not only cardiovascular disease that we should be looking at.
ACSH would like to give a special thanks to Gerald Baron, author of CrisisBlogger, for his latest blog entry alerting readers to our publication Scared to Death. As Baron points out, [ACSH s] focus seems to be combating junk science and situations where politics and public opinion intervenes [sic] in good policy making relating to science and health.
Over half a million middle school students and three million high school students smoke, announced U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin while presenting the office s first report on youth smoking since 1994. Nine in 10 smokers pick up the habit before their 18th birthday, thus prompting Dr. Benjamin to declare youth smoking an epidemic that requires a renewed effort to prevent teens from smoking.
As part of a legal settlement with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the FDA must decide by tomorrow whether it will ban the widely used chemical bisphenol A (BPA). The agency s decision will determine if the chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic can remain in food packaging.
We ve recently reported on the troubling rise in the incidence of cavities among children, which may largely be avoided by ensuring that kids teeth are exposed to the proper amount of fluoride. One easy way to accomplish this is to make sure kids are drinking tap water, which has been fluoridated for decades in many areas of the country, for just this purpose.
Folic acid protects against neural tube defects (birth defects that can be devastating, the most common of which is spina bifida) in developing fetuses which is why women of childbearing age are advised to consume 400 micrograms of the vitamin daily. And in order to ensure that women who are or who might become pregnant are getting enough folic acid in their diets, the FDA mandated in 1998 that certain grain products, including corn meal, wheat flour, rice, macaroni, and bread, be fortified with the vitamin.
Over a quarter of New York City s residents under the age of 18 fall below the poverty line, and many of these children fail to maintain adequate nutrition. So when the city s health department began providing children in some schools with free in-classroom breakfasts, the program was warmly welcomed.
People with type 2 diabetes will benefit from a more individualized approach to their treatment, according to a joint statement from American and European diabetes societies. Both groups now recommend that target blood sugar levels (as measured by glycated hemoglobin levels) and drug treatments be tailored to each patient's needs and preferences, rather than the previous policy of a fixed algorithm of treatment progressions.
A pharmacologist's research has linked kidney failure and cancer to an ancient and still inexplicably popular herbal supplement, Aristolochia, commonly sold as birthwort. And while Dr.
Paging all doctors: A new set of guidelines, devised by a team of nine specialists plucked from eight separate medical specialty boards, recommends that physicians less frequently perform certain common procedures and prescribe some expensive medicines less often; it also advises patients to question the necessity of some of the tests they are offered.
Here s another instance where the headlines may be true, but the impact on most women will be next to nothing. Study finds some early breast cancer overdiagnosed, reads a recent AP headline. It refers to a new study from Norway that estimates that 15 to 25 percent of breast cancers detected by mammograms would not have caused any problems during a woman s lifetime if left alone.
Today marks the fifth anniversary of World Malaria Day an initiative started by the World Health Organization (WHO) to call attention to a global goal of ending malaria deaths by 2015. Nearly half of the world s population is at risk of contracting malaria, a parasitic disease transmitted by certain mosquitoes.
Pagination
ACSH relies on donors like you. If you enjoy our work, please contribute.
Make your tax-deductible gift today!