Safety
Quality varies in social networking websites for diabetics
Boston, Mass. — Nearly one-half of U.S. adults who use the Internet participate in social networks. While these increasingly include health-focused networks, not much is known about their quality and safety. In one of the first formal studies of s…
More doctors must join nurses, administrators in leading efforts to improve patient safety, outcomes
Efforts to keep hospital patients safe and continually improve the overall results of health care can’t work unless medical centers figure out a way to get physicians more involved in the process.
“Physicians’ training and perspectives on patient …
Highly interactive training helps workers in dangerous jobs avoid deadly mistakes
WASHINGTON — Hands-on safety training for workers in highly hazardous jobs is most effective at improving safe work behavior, according to psychologists who analyzed close to 40 years of research. However, less engaging training can be just as eff…
Study raises safety concerns about experimental cancer approach
A study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has raised safety concerns about an investigational approach to treating cancer.
The strategy takes aim at a key signaling pathway, called Notch, involved in for…
Inverse benefits due to drug marketing undermine patient safety and public health
GALVESTON, TX — Drugs that pharmaceutical companies market most aggressively to physicians and patients tend to offer less benefit and more harm to most patients — a phenomenon described as the “inverse benefit law” in a paper from the Universi…
Evidence suggests e-cigs safer than cigarettes, researcher claims
In a new report that bucks the concerns raised by the Food and Drug Administration, a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) (sph.bu.edu) researcher concludes that electronic cigarettes are much safer than real cigarettes and show promise…
Expert: Seven-year moratorium on Gulf oil drilling an unwise decision
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The Obama administration’s decision to maintain a ban on oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is a mistake, according to a University of Illinois expert who wrote a six-volume b…
Electronic cigarettes are unsafe and pose health risks, UC Riverside study finds
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Electronic cigarettes (or e-cigarettes), also called “electronic nicotine delivery systems,” are increasingly used worldwide even though only sparse information is available on their health effects. In the United States, e-…
Expert panel addresses safety in medical imaging
CHICAGO — An expert panel convened today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) to discuss medical imaging appropriateness, ionizing radiation from imaging procedures and efforts under way to curb overutilization…