Why Antidepressants Are No Better Than Placebos - Newsweek.com: "In 1998 Moore used the Freedom of Information Act to pry such data from the FDA. The total came to 47 company-sponsored studies—on Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Serzone, and Celexa—that Kirsch and colleagues then pored over. (As an aside, it turned out that about 40 percent of the clinical trials had never been published. That is significantly higher than for other classes of drugs, says Lisa Bero of the University of California, San Francisco; overall, 22 percent of clinical trials of drugs are not published. 'By and large,' says Kirsch, 'the unpublished studies were those that had failed to show a significant benefit from taking the actual drug.') In just over half of the published and unpublished studies, he and colleagues reported in 2002, the drug alleviated depression no better than a placebo. 'And the extra benefit of antidepressants was even less than we saw when we analyzed only published studies,' Kirsch recalls. About 82 percent of the response to antidepressants—not the 75 percent he had calculated from examining only published studies—had also been achieved by a dummy pill."
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist - Orphaned, Raped and Ignored - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Orphaned, Raped and Ignored - NYTimes.com
Again my hero Nick Kristof brings light to darkness, telling heartbreaking stories to us so that we'll give a damn and DO something.
Time to end pelvic exams done without consent - The Globe and Mail
Time to end pelvic exams done without consent - The Globe and Mail: "Imagine that you are undergoing a fairly routine surgery – say, removal of uterine fibroids or hysterectomy. During or right after the procedure, while you are still under anesthesia, a group of medical students parades into the operating room and they perform gynecological exams (unrelated to the surgery) without your knowledge.
Do you consider this okay, or an outrageous violation of your rights?
Regardless of your feelings, you should be aware that this is standard procedure in many Canadian teaching hospitals. "
Friday, January 29, 2010
Featured Article - Ginkgo herbal medicines may increase seizures in people with epilepsy
Featured Article - Ginkgo herbal medicines may increase seizures in people with epilepsy
Good to know. Doesn't mean that ginkgo should never be used, though ...
Featured Article - 'Good' bacteria keep immune system primed to fight future infections
Featured Article - 'Good' bacteria keep immune system primed to fight future infections
Just ONE of the ways our friendly microbes help us. :)
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist - What Could You Live Without? - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - What Could You Live Without? - NYTimes.com: "Kevin Salwen, a writer and entrepreneur in Atlanta, was driving his 14-year-old daughter, Hannah, back from a sleepover in 2006. While waiting at a traffic light, they saw a black Mercedes coupe on one side and a homeless man begging for food on the other.
“Dad, if that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal,” Hannah protested. The light changed and they drove on, but Hannah was too young to be reasonable. She pestered her parents about inequity, insisting that she wanted to do something.
“What do you want to do?” her mom responded. “Sell our house?”
Warning! Never suggest a grand gesture to an idealistic teenager."
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist - Religion and Women - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Religion and Women - NYTimes.com: "“Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths, creating an environment in which violations against women are justified,” former President Jimmy Carter noted in a speech last month to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Australia.
“The belief that women are inferior human beings in the eyes of God,” Mr. Carter continued, “gives excuses to the brutal husband who beats his wife, the soldier who rapes a woman, the employer who has a lower pay scale for women employees, or parents who decide to abort a female embryo.”"
Saturday, January 09, 2010
AP News : TheMonitor.com
AP News : TheMonitor.com: "OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner.
Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked.
The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.
Twenty-five years ago, Norwegians were also losing their lives to this bacteria. But Norway's public health system fought back with an aggressive program that made it the most infection-free country in the world. A key part of that program was cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics."
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Featured Article - Chlorophylls effective against aflatoxin
Featured Article - Chlorophylls effective against aflatoxin: "A new study has found that chlorophyll and its derivative chlorophyllin are effective in limiting the absorption of aflatoxin in humans. Aflatoxin is produced by a fungus that is a contaminant of grains including corn, peanuts and soybeans; it is known to cause liver cancer – and can work in concert with other health concerns, such as hepatitis."
