This morning, the Baltimore Sun published my op-ed about disease-mongering by special interests.
http://tinyurl.com/ez6gs
Also this morning, the Today Show heavily promoted a story about the outbreak of “wrong-site surgery,” where a careless surgeon removes the wrong limb.
Yes, it happens, but hardly at the alarming rate Katie and Matt had indicated. Turns out, according to the respected physician-author Atul Gawande, who was interviewed on the set, that all of last year there were a grand total of 84 such cases reported.
Over a 20 year period, he went on, there were only 25 “important” cases. A large study suggested the rate of operating on the wrong body part is 1 in 100,000. Even if underreported — and don’t you think if you had the wrong arm amptuated you might report it to everyone? — a doubling in the rate would be 2 in 100,000.
On the same subject of numbers, kudos to Judy Peres of the Chicago Tribune for an in-depth explanation of what to make of yesterday’s study that calcium CAN protect elderly bones, a finding that seems to contradict the Women’s Health Initiative study of two months ago that calcium made no difference. http://tinyurl.com/f9axg
One study measured prescribed calcium versus placebo and the other study measured the placebo against women who actually took the calcium, excluding non-compliers. And that’s the difference.
More at the HealthBehaviorBlog www.cfah.org
ScienceBlog.com has no paywalls, no sponsored content, and no agenda beyond getting the science right. Every story here is written to inform, not to impress an advertiser or push a point of view.
Good science journalism takes time — reading the papers, checking the claims, finding researchers who can put findings in context. We do that work because we think it matters.
If you find this site useful, consider supporting it with a donation. Even a few dollars a month helps keep the coverage independent and free for everyone.