samedi 30 novembre 2013

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ: ASK YOUR DOCTOR WHETHER HE PAYS FOR WHAT HE READS!

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ

Be careful not to become Ignorant!

My teacher at University of Miami, Dr Howard Lessner (olav ha shalom) once told me, noting my desire to devour medical information:
Do not trust medical information that comes free, read what you pay for.
Of course in 2014, we are inundated with FREE medical information, in the case of Medical Practitioners, bogus journals, just set up by Interest Groups to propagate the information they want to be known. They are very seldom written by Doctors but by journalists who report from various meetings and also summarize the articles.
This is where the manipulations begin
A notable headline in a Free “journal” touted:
Not Inferior to Placebo
And this morning, this arrived:
Diet beverages pose no greater harm than sugar sweetened
Do these journalists truly believe that doctors who spend 10-12 years at University level to educate themselves are that stupid?
What happens is as follows.
A journalist attends a meeting, in this case the Obesity week, November 11-15, 2013 in Atlanta.
The culpable or innocent researchers may have an abstract or oral presentation that allows them to twist the fact into something else altogether.
The title was
Role of non-nutritive sweeteners in the regulation of weight: Obesity facts and fiction
And they would interview the presenter who is happy with the free publicity he is getting.
He said: when you stop drinking sugar-sweetened beverages, you loose weight. Not a surprising remark!
People are better off drinking diet drinks when compared to sugary drinks, but he added, it is not a strong effect!
That was converted into the headlines of today:
Diet Beverages pose no greater harm than sugar sweetened beverages.

When you read the article, whether the original presenter meant it or not, it comes across as if he is employed by the Aspartame manufacturers to promote diet drinks!
Reading medical nuances from journalists is like taking a course in Pharmacology from the Drug Representatives.
You are what you read, so please make sure that you subscribe to your specialty journals and also journals or magazines which are peer reviewed and there are many of them making available excellent research.
This morning, yet another paid Professor Peon had this to write:
The SAVOR-TIMI 53 and EXAMINE trials were highlighted at the annual European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress and European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting and published inThe New England Journal of Medicine. In SAVOR-TIMI 53, saxagliptin (Onglyza, AstraZeneca/Bristol-Myers Squibb) added to standard care neither reduced nor increased risk for ischemic events as compared with placebo in patients with type 2 diabetes at high CV risk. In EXAMINE, alogliptin (Nesina, Takeda Pharmaceuticals) added to standard care did not increase major adverse CV event rates as compared with placebo in patients with type 2 diabetes and recent acute coronary syndrome.


And this, he touted, as an advance in the treatment of Diabetes! This is the Non Inferiority to Placebo they are talking about!


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