They Are Not All Monsters –Dr. Nancy Irwin’s Weblog

“In psychology, there is a basic belief that “What is beautiful is good.” Therefore, if someone who is beautiful (or does beautiful things) does something bad, it creates cognitive dissonance, a confused state of being that can block comprehension and appropriate action.”

They Are Not All Monsters (article at  Dr. Nancy Irwin’s Weblog)

hile many are still reeling from the recent painful Penn State scandal, I fervently hope that this will be a tremendous learning lesson for our society.  As a treatment professional of sex offenders as well as victims, I would like to address some dynamics of perpetrators and witnesses that the public in general is perhaps unaware of.

What do child molesters look like?  Your grandfather, your brother, your aunt, your employee, and yes, brilliant college football coaches.  No one is all good or all bad; and sex offenders are no exception. They may be extremely talented, intelligent, successful, good-looking, blessed with beautiful families and “normal” sexual outlets. They cover all walks of life: early 20’s through 70’s, all ethnicities, races, religions, IQ levels, education, sexual orientations, and all socioeconomic strata. They don’t all look like “perverts.” There is no typical profile.

In psychology, there is a basic belief that “What is beautiful is good.”  Therefore, if someone who is beautiful (or does beautiful things) does something bad, it creates cognitive dissonance, a confused state of being that can block comprehension and appropriate action.  It is fairly easy for us to believe that an unattractive, low-achiever could commit sex crimes against children, and we then vilify the “pervert,” even after he/she admits it works to control it.

Many child molesters and pedophiles actually hate themselves for what they consider uncontrollable urges and would get help if they knew where to turn.  Sadly, the global belief is that they cannot be helped, and most reoffend.  Fortunately, this is completely false.  With treatment, the recidivism rate is between 5%-13%, much lower than for non-sex crimes (US Dept of Justice; Bureau of Statistics). While there is no cure for an attraction to children, it can be managed much like substance addictions.  Again, therapy and support are crucial to success.

Adults fail to intervene and report abuse for a variety of reasons, one of the most salient being denial or minimization of the offense.  This is enabling, and enablers are more culpable than offenders, who can be “crippled” by their  disorder. Enablers do not want the offense to be a reality, and keenly hope that it will just “go away,” particularly if it involves a celebrity or someone we really admire. The American culture all but deifies sports figures.  We want heroes, and athletes and coaches bespeak health, fitness, confidence, winning, and an all- American wholesomeness that blinds some of us to their blemishes or weaknesses. While not excusing their response to the recent accusations at Penn State, Joe Paterno, Mike McQueary, Spanier, et al, I believe, were caught in this immobilizing, enabling position. While it appears that they put football before the wellbeing of children, potentially what was occurring was their inability to comprehend the severity of the crime and respond appropriately. Their actions may have been completely different and appropriate if the perpetrator were a stranger and not part of the success machine of Penn State Football.

Related articles

• Mike McQueary Begs to Differ… (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)

• Misperceptions about child sex offenders (jflahiff.wordpress.com)

• Why didn’t McQueary call the police? – Penn State – Salon.com (mbcalyn.com)
• Penn State – Retrospective and Prospects (sportscurmudgeon.com)
• Key Penn State Witness Mike McQueary Now Says He Did Talk To The Police In 2002 (businessinsider.com)
• In Sandusky’s Birthplace, Questions of How Well You Can Know a Man (nytimes.com)
• Authorities Step Up Action in Penn State Abuse Case (usnews.com)

Investments in Public Health and Prevention Save Lives and Money

Social Security: Public Health nursing made available through child welfare services.

From the  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF):

Investments in Public Health and Prevention Save
Lives and Money

Even though America spends more than $2 trillion annually on health care—more
than any other nation in the world—tens of millions of Americans suffer every
day from preventable diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some
forms of cancer, which rob them of their health and quality of life. A series of
research reports funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) provides
valuable new information for policy-makers and other public officials who are
looking for ways to help Americans stay healthy and get the economy back on
track.

A new RWJF policy brief highlights recent evidence indicating that strategic
investments in proven, community-based prevention programs could both save lives
and result in significant U.S. health care cost savings and overall economic
cost savings. The brief—Return on Investments in Public Health and
Prevention: A Summary of Groundbreaking Research Studies—highlights the
findings and recommendations from four studies released between 2008 and 2011.
The studies—several of which were funded by RWJF—reveal that public health
investments can help prevent chronic disease, reduce escalating health costs and
improve our overall economy.

Additionally, a new report by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH)—also funded
by RWJF—features six case studies across the United States illustrating how the
link between public health and economic development can play out locally. From
San Diego, Calif., to Hernando, Miss., the report examines innovative public
health initiatives that are attracting businesses, improving workplace wellness,
and providing a spark to local economies.

 

• Read
  RWJF’s policy brief, Return
  on Investments in Public Health.
• Read
  TFAH’s issue brief, Healthier
  Americans for a Healthier Economy.
• Read a Q&A
  with Tom Mason, president of the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota, onNewPublicHealth.org.

Related articles

• Jeffrey Levi: Healthier Americans and a Healthier Economy Go Hand in Hand (huffingtonpost.com)
• The Potential to Solve Perplexing Health Problems (rwjfblogs.typepad.com)
• The Burden Of Blood Disorders, A Public Health Issue (medicalnewstoday.com)

Apple Makes Finding Medical Apps for Professional A Little Easier

From the Krafty Librarian post Apple Makes Finding Medical Apps for Professional A Little Easier.

According mobihealthnews, Apple quietly launched a new section on the AppStore directed just towards healthcare professionals.  The section which was referred to as an “iTunes Room for Healthcare,” has apps for both the iPhone and iPad intended specifically for healthcare professionals. (There appears to be about a dozen apps that are also for consumer use.)

Not only will this section be dedicated to apps for healthcare professionals but it will also internal categorization as well.  There are six categories for the medical apps: reference, educational, EMR and patient monitoring, imaging, point of care, and personal care (for consumers).  Mobihealthnews thinks that the “personal care” apps may have been included “as a means to help care providers recommend popular health apps to their patients.”

Finally!!!!!  That medical/health section had a lot of junk apps that people had to sift through to find good stuff, it is nice to see this professional section come about. My only question is how/who is adding and vetting the apps?  I hope it isn’t a free for all where app developers can just add their app if they feel like (meaning we could return to problem of chaff out numbering the wheat) but I would like it to be open enough that something that was good but accidentally left out or something newly created could be easily added.

Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research

Excerpts from Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research, at the Krafty Librarian blog

Daniel Hooker posted some nice slides on Using Social Media to Advance Your Research that he presented to a group of PhDs and post-docs at the UBC Faculty of Medicine.  I gave a similar presentation to World Health Interest Group at Case Western Reserve University.  I spoke about using blogs, Twitter, wikis, etc. in scientific research.

During my presentation some of the attendees got hung up on the tools and technologies as toys and the idea of communicating was lost.  Social media is just one method people can use to communicate, share ideas, protocols, methods, lab notes, etc. In the very broadest of terms, email is sort of social media.  You can email many people who can then pass that discussion along to others. Listservs are a perfect example of this.  But email has been around with us for such a long time that there is no real discussion about its communication potential.  Yet, email was once a new fangled communication toy.

Read this abstract from Science 1982. 12;215(4534):843-52.

Computer networks are an integral part of the rapid expansion of computing. Their emergence depends both on evolving communication technologies, such as packet-switching and satellites, and on diverse experiments and innovations in the software tools that exploit communications. The tools provide computer users with facilities such as electronic mail, access to remote computers, and electronic bulletin boards. Scientists can both adapt and extend tools to meet the communication needs of their work, and several networks are developing to serve particular scientific communities.

……

Blog examples:

• Useful Chemistry  -Chronicles research involving the synthesis of novel anti-malarial compounds. Closely tied to Useful Chemistry wiki

• Cold Spring Harbor Protocols –Discusses current events in biology with emphasis on lab techniques, protocols are highlighted & discussed in detail

• HUGO Matters  –Discusses topics relevant to human genetics and genomics

Lab Notes blogs:

• Cameron Neylon http://biolab.isis.rl.ac.uk/camerons_labblog

• Michael Barton http://www.michaelbarton.me.uk/research/

 Wiki examples:

• UsefulChem wiki –Synthesis of novel anti-malarial compounds, including experiments. It is completely open.

• OBF wiki –Open Bioinformatics Foundation focused on supporting open source programming in bioinformatics

• OpenWetWare –Promotes sharing of information, know-how and wisdom among researchers & groups working in biology & biological engineering. It is partially open.

• WikiPathways –Dedicated to the curation of biological pathways

• Yeast Genome wiki –Everything yeast including protocols, methods, reagents, strains

Lab or Research Group wikis:

• Kochlab notebook wiki –DNA unzipping data analysis. It is semi public.

• Rosania Research Group wiki –All lab notebooks of Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of Michigan College of Pharmacy

 Twitter feeds:

• NatureNews

• NEJM

• NIHforFunding

• FASEBopa

• CellPressNews

Lists of scientists and researchers on Twitter:

• 100 Amazing Scientists You Should Follow on Twitter -organized according to discipline

• Biomedical Twitter People and Lists – List of people, companies, publishers, etc

The easiest way to have a rich and informative Twitter feed is to follow the people the leaders in your field are following and branch off from there.  By the way, Twitter’s site is ok for learning, but it really stinks for following any sort of conversation AND you always have to refresh the page (annoying). I highly recommend using Hootsuite or TweetDeck to monitor your Twitter feeds.  The thing I like about TweetDeck is that a little message pops up in the corner of my computer screen with the tweet. I can read it quickly and decide whether I want to ignore it, comment, or click on their link. Using Twitter on TweetDeck this way is very similar to how I use email because my email pops messages to my main screen too.

Really you need to sit down and figure out what your information needs are and the leaders in your field to follow.  This might be hard, but I bet there might be somebody in your field who is already doing it, so ask them, build off of what they are doing and tweek it to fit your needs.

PubMed Health – A Growing Resource for Clinical Effectiveness Information

From the November NLM Technical Bulletin article

PubMed Health — A Growing Resource for Clinical Effectiveness Information

PubMed® Health developed further as a resource for clinical effectiveness research with its August and September 2011 releases. Growing from around 200 items based on systematic reviews to over 5,000, PubMed Health has also begun a collection focused on helping people understand systematic reviews and their results. PubMed Health goals are: helping users find the evidence that could answer their questions about effects of health care and helping them understand what they find.

Making Systematic Reviews More Accessible
Systematic reviews that identify and interpret studies on the effects of health care form an essential research basis for informed decision-making. Systematic reviewing has been growing, especially with the advent of The Cochrane Collaboration and the increasing incorporation of this methodology in health technology assessment by public agencies and clinical practice guideline development.

Systematic reviews (including health technology assessments) are often lengthy and highly technical. Their evolution has been accompanied by a growth in knowledge translation activity. Along with traditional abstracts, various forms have been developed to help people use systematic reviews: executive and policymaker summaries, summaries or other forms for patients/consumers and summaries for clinicians.

However, these materials have been scattered widely on content providers’ Web sites without being collected centrally. Many of the systematic reviews undertaken by public health technology assessment agencies have also remained outside the National Library of Medicine® (NLM®) system. The PubMed Health initiative is gathering them together within a single searchable resource.

PubMed Health Content
PubMed Health contains systematic reviews and summaries of systematic reviews undertaken or updated in roughly the last ten years. The time limit is applied to publication date of around eight years, to allow for the time lag from the date of the evidence search. The cut-off currently is 2003.

New content incorporated in these releases include summaries from The Cochrane Collaboration and the National Health Service (NHS) National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme. There are also full text reviews from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Drug Effectiveness Review Project (DERP) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), England’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines program, and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Evidence-based Synthesis Program. From NHS Choices comes “Behind the Headlines”, its educational service on the science behind the news. These new content providers join PubMed Health original consumer clinical effectiveness content for consumers content provided by AHRQ and the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG).

The reviews and review summaries now in PubMed Health account for perhaps one-third of the good quality systematic reviews published by public agencies and journals worldwide. Most of the remainder can be found in PubMed “Clinical Queries” Systematic Reviews search which runs simultaneously with a PubMed Health search; those PubMed results are presented as links on the right-hand portion of the results page (see #3 in Figure 4).

Organization
The re-designed homepage (see Figure 1) includes four key sections:

• Contents: a complete alphabetical listing of all titles, sorted by type of content.
• Behind Headlines: the NHS guide to the science behind health stories in the news.
• New & updated: content added in the last 60 days.
• Featured reviews: high quality reviews on interesting topics are selected and featured here. “Previously featured reviews” are provided in an RSS feed to which people can subscribe.
• Understanding clinical effectiveness: an explanation of clinical effectiveness research along with a section focusing on resources to help people understand systematic reviews and interpret the results.

Figure 1: PubMed Health homepage.

A drop-down box under “Contents” (see Figure 2) shows the categories of information currently included in PubMed Health where these are available:

• For consumers: includes consumer summaries of systematic reviews as well as consumer information based on systematic reviews.
• Executive summaries: executive or policymaker summaries of systematic reviews.
• Clinical guides: clinician summaries of systematic reviews as well as clinical practice guidelines that are based on a fully reported systematic review.
• Full text reviews: systematic reviews with full texts, including PDF versions.
• Medical encyclopedia: medical and drug information for consumers for supplementary background information.

PubMed Health includes content that is currently also cited in PubMed, and PubMed Health will systematically be building in links to these citations. However, there will be some time lag for many items between inclusion in PubMed Health and citation in PubMed. Consumer content from PubMed Health is currently not included in PubMed.

Figure 2: Contents drop-down box.

At the top right-hand corner (see Figure 3), “About PubMed Health” explains the Web site and the National Center Biotechnology Information, NLM, with a full listing of content providers. “Help” includes explanation of basic functions, along with suggested citations for PubMed Health content.

Figure 3: About PubMed Health and Help features.

Searching
The primary search (see #1 in Figure 4) returns clinical effectiveness content by relevance, with the option of viewing all (default) or only specified content types. Relevant medical encyclopedia results are shown at the right (see #2 inFigure 4), with the results of the “Clinical Queries” filter search for systematic reviews in PubMed showing below those (see #3 in Figure 4). “Clinical Queries” returns results chronologically.

Figure 4: Search results.

Additional Features
With medical encyclopedia content, PubMed Health has enhanced the display of anatomical images and given this popular feature a more prominent position. There are links from the medical encyclopedia diseases and conditions pages to MedlinePlus® content.

PubMed Health now features “Add this” sharing for e-mail and social media. Coming in the fall, PubMed Health will begin a Twitter feed, announcing new content providers and features, as well as featured content.

PubMed Health full address: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/
Shortcut: http://www.pubmed.gov/health
Customer service contact: pmh-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

By Hilda Bastian
National Center for Biotechnology Information

 

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PubMed Health — A Growing Resource for Clinical Effectiveness Information

 

Image via Wikipedia

From the November NLM Technical Bulletin article

PubMed Health — A Growing Resource for Clinical Effectiveness Information

PubMed® Health developed further as a resource for clinical effectiveness research with its August and September 2011 releases. Growing from around 200 items based on systematic reviews to over 5,000, PubMed Health has also begun a collection focused on helping people understand systematic reviews and their results. PubMed Health goals are: helping users find the evidence that could answer their questions about effects of health care and helping them understand what they find.

Making Systematic Reviews More Accessible
Systematic reviews that identify and interpret studies on the effects of health care form an essential research basis for informed decision-making. Systematic reviewing has been growing, especially with the advent of The Cochrane Collaboration and the increasing incorporation of this methodology in health technology assessment by public agencies and clinical practice guideline development.

Systematic reviews (including health technology assessments) are often lengthy and highly technical. Their evolution has been accompanied by a growth in knowledge translation activity. Along with traditional abstracts, various forms have been developed to help people use systematic reviews: executive and policymaker summaries, summaries or other forms for patients/consumers and summaries for clinicians.

However, these materials have been scattered widely on content providers’ Web sites without being collected centrally. Many of the systematic reviews undertaken by public health technology assessment agencies have also remained outside the National Library of Medicine® (NLM®) system. The PubMed Health initiative is gathering them together within a single searchable resource.

PubMed Health Content
PubMed Health contains systematic reviews and summaries of systematic reviews undertaken or updated in roughly the last ten years. The time limit is applied to publication date of around eight years, to allow for the time lag from the date of the evidence search. The cut-off currently is 2003.

New content incorporated in these releases include summaries from The Cochrane Collaboration and the National Health Service (NHS) National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme. There are also full text reviews from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Drug Effectiveness Review Project (DERP) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), England’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines program, and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Evidence-based Synthesis Program. From NHS Choices comes “Behind the Headlines”, its educational service on the science behind the news. These new content providers join PubMed Health original consumer clinical effectiveness content for consumers content provided by AHRQ and the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG).

The reviews and review summaries now in PubMed Health account for perhaps one-third of the good quality systematic reviews published by public agencies and journals worldwide. Most of the remainder can be found in PubMed “Clinical Queries” Systematic Reviews search which runs simultaneously with a PubMed Health search; those PubMed results are presented as links on the right-hand portion of the results page (see #3 in Figure 4).

Organization
The re-designed homepage (see Figure 1) includes four key sections:

• Contents: a complete alphabetical listing of all titles, sorted by type of content.
• Behind Headlines: the NHS guide to the science behind health stories in the news.
• New & updated: content added in the last 60 days.
• Featured reviews: high quality reviews on interesting topics are selected and featured here. “Previously featured reviews” are provided in an RSS feed to which people can subscribe.
• Understanding clinical effectiveness: an explanation of clinical effectiveness research along with a section focusing on resources to help people understand systematic reviews and interpret the results.

Figure 1: PubMed Health homepage.

A drop-down box under “Contents” (see Figure 2) shows the categories of information currently included in PubMed Health where these are available:

• For consumers: includes consumer summaries of systematic reviews as well as consumer information based on systematic reviews.
• Executive summaries: executive or policymaker summaries of systematic reviews.
• Clinical guides: clinician summaries of systematic reviews as well as clinical practice guidelines that are based on a fully reported systematic review.
• Full text reviews: systematic reviews with full texts, including PDF versions.
• Medical encyclopedia: medical and drug information for consumers for supplementary background information.

PubMed Health includes content that is currently also cited in PubMed, and PubMed Health will systematically be building in links to these citations. However, there will be some time lag for many items between inclusion in PubMed Health and citation in PubMed. Consumer content from PubMed Health is currently not included in PubMed.

Figure 2: Contents drop-down box.

At the top right-hand corner (see Figure 3), “About PubMed Health” explains the Web site and the National Center Biotechnology Information, NLM, with a full listing of content providers. “Help” includes explanation of basic functions, along with suggested citations for PubMed Health content.

Figure 3: About PubMed Health and Help features.

Searching
The primary search (see #1 in Figure 4) returns clinical effectiveness content by relevance, with the option of viewing all (default) or only specified content types. Relevant medical encyclopedia results are shown at the right (see #2 inFigure 4), with the results of the “Clinical Queries” filter search for systematic reviews in PubMed showing below those (see #3 in Figure 4). “Clinical Queries” returns results chronologically.

Figure 4: Search results.

Additional Features
With medical encyclopedia content, PubMed Health has enhanced the display of anatomical images and given this popular feature a more prominent position. There are links from the medical encyclopedia diseases and conditions pages to MedlinePlus® content.

PubMed Health now features “Add this” sharing for e-mail and social media. Coming in the fall, PubMed Health will begin a Twitter feed, announcing new content providers and features, as well as featured content.

PubMed Health full address: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/
Shortcut: http://www.pubmed.gov/health
Customer service contact: pmh-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

By Hilda Bastian
National Center for Biotechnology Information

 

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Studies explore new approaches to treating pain

Hippocrates stares down at the UCSF doctors, continually reminding them to stick to his oath.

From the 14 Novemer 2011 Eureka news alert

Research includes drug and non-drug interventions

Washington — Scientists are discovering promising approaches to treating pain, one of the most common and debilitating neurological complaints, according to research released today at Neuroscience 2011, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health. Studies show that “mirror box therapy” can help reduce arthritis-related pain, and that a new opioid-like drug may be able to relieve acute pain without the euphoric effects that can lead to dependency. Additional research also identifies the possible neurobiological source of common side effects of morphine.

Specifically, today’s new findings show that:

• Two of morphine’s most common side effects, itch and headache, may be due to the drug’s activation of immune cells in the membrane surrounding the brain and spinal cord (Julie Wieseler, PhD, abstract 178.12, see summary attached).
• A visual feedback technique called mirror box therapy can help alleviate hand pain in patients with arthritis (Laura Case, abstract 72.03, see summary attached).
• In an animal study, a novel drug relieves acute pain without the dangerous side effects associated with opioid painkillers such as morphine (Stephen Harrison, PhD, abstract 178.10, see summary attached).

Other recent findings discussed show:

• A gene therapy treatment reduced pain in 10 people in a Phase I clinical trial that tested for treatment safety (David Fink, MD, see attached speaker’s summary).
• A naturally occurring protein that supports the survival and growth of neurons in the brain and spinal cord may be a potential therapeutic intervention to prevent chronic pain following spinal cord injuries, according to animal research (Ching-Yi Lin, PhD, see attached speaker’s summary).

“Pain is one of the most intransigent and difficult symptoms to treat,” said Allan I. Basbaum, PhD, FRS, of the University of California, San Francisco, press conference moderator and expert on the neurobiology of pain. “These studies and others are helping us better understand the complex neural pathways involved in pain and the long-term consequences of injury. With this, researchers will be better poised to develop approaches to alleviate pain and aid in recovery from injuries.”

 

###

 

This research was supported by national funding agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, as well as private and philanthropic organizations. Dr. Basbaum has consulted with Nektar Therapeutics, Inc., but was not involved in research presented today.

View full release at www.sfn.org/newsroom.

 

 

Related articles

• Neuroscience 2011 Explores New Approaches To Treating Pain (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Jab using body’s painkillers could help 500,000 in pain (guardian.co.uk)
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• The connections between “itch” and “ouch” (boingboing.net)
• Women’s Sleep Problems Linked to Fibromyalgia Risk (webmd.com)
• Researchers block morphine’s itchy side effect (eurekalert.org)
• Chronic Pain Management_P3 (bupa.com.au)
• UM researcher identifies novel treatment for pain in sickle cell disease (eurekalert.org)

Soda’s Evil Twin – The Dangers of Fruit Drinks (Infographic) [With Added Item on Environmental Degradation by Soda Manufacturer Processes]

From Jen Rs Web page  (Twitter: jenicarhee)

Related articles

• [Environmenal effects of soda drink manufacturing overseas]

From the January 2012 newsletter item by the Mt. St. Agnes Theological Center for Women
Green Notes

Bad news for soft drink lovers…You might believe that your daily cola fix only poses a threat to your diet but, depending on your brand of choice, you could be terribly wrong.  As major soft drink manufactures move their bottling plants over seas and into the developing world, many are engaging in irresponsible behaviors that harm the local environment and communities dependent on it.

Coca-Cola stands out as the worst offender, particularly in India.  In the last decade, tens of thousands of farmers and their families have lost their livelihoods as Coca-Cola’s activities have dried out their wells and poisoned any alternate local water sources.  The company has peddled potentially toxic product containing elevated levels of dangerous pesticides in drinks sold in India. The dangerous pesticides include DDT, Lindane, and Malathion.  PepsiCo’s activities in India have been only marginally better.  India’s parliament has banned Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products from all of its cafeterias and, as of 2007, ten thousand of its schools and colleges have followed suit.

In support of India’s efforts to force responsible practices from the Coca-Cola and PepsiCo corporations, our Center will no longer purchase or serve soft drinks from these companies.  We hope you will do the same.  For more information regarding the on-going protest movement against Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, check outwww.cokejustice.org  andwww.indiaresource.org/news/2010/1044.html, or refer to Paul Hawken’s book, Blessed Unrest, which our Center will be discussing this April.

• Soda Has An Evil Twin, And His Name Is Fruit Drink! [Infographic] (jack.radio.com)
• How many lives could a soda tax save?
• Despite industry promises, Yale study finds unprecedented marketing of sugary drinks to youth (Robert Woods Foundation)
• The Dangers of Fruit Drinks: Soda’s Evil Twin (INFOGRAPHIC) (blippitt.com)
• Giving Up On Sugar? (foodworksblog.wordpress.com)
• 2 sugary drinks a day can boost heart disease, diabetes risk in women (news.bioscholar.com)
• Sugar-sweetened beverages may increase cardiovascular risk in women (eurekalert.org)
• Misleading Statistical Information in Ads: A Drug Ad Analyzed and Related Evaluation Resources (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Misleading information on health social sites (and tips on how to evaluate health/medical information) (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Ethical Implications of the Use of Data and Statistics (lynnmunoz.wordpress.com)
• Information Designers (fusionfinds.wordpress.com)
• What are video infographics? (marketing.yell.com)

Social Media Discussion On Cardiac Arrest Reveals New Avenues For Public Health Education

From the 15 November 2011 Medical News Today article

Discussion about cardiac arrest on Twitter is common and represents a new opportunity to provide lifesaving information to the public, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The Penn investigators presented two studies (ReSS Abstracts #52 and #53) examining cardiac arrest-information exchange on the social media site today at the American Heart Association‘s annual Scientific Sessions.

The Penn researchers evaluated cardiac arrest- and resuscitation-related Tweets during a month-long period in the spring of 2011 and discovered that users frequently share information about CPR and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and discuss resuscitation topics in the news. Although their findings indicate that use of the platform to ask questions about cardiac arrest appears to be only in its infancy, the authors suggest that Twitter represents a unique, promising avenue to respond to queries from the public and disseminate information about this leading killer – particularly in the areas of CPR training and lifesaving interventions like therapeutichypothermia. …

Read the article

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• Members of the public lack skills, confidence necessary to save lives with CPR, Penn research shows (eurekalert.org)
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• Only a third of US state police agencies equip cars with AEDs (eurekalert.org)

Social Networks Promote Cooperation, Discourage Selfishness, So Nice Guys Can Finish First

 

 

Image via Wikipedia. This Image Is An Example Of A Blocking Cluster In A Social Network.

From the 16 November 2011 Medical News Today article

It turns out nice guys can finish first, and David Rand has the evidence to prove it.

Rand, a post-doctoral fellow in Harvard’s Department of Psychology and a Lecturer in Human Evolutionary Biology, is the lead author of a new paper, which found that dynamic, complex social networks encourage their members to be friendlier and more cooperative, with the possible payoff coming in an expanded social sphere, while selfish behavior can lead to an individual being shunned from the group and left – literally on their own.

As described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the research is among the first such studies to examine social interaction as a fluid, ever-changing process. Previous studies of complex social networks largely used static snapshots of the groups to examine how members were or were not connected. This new approach, Rand said, is the closest scientists have yet come to describing the way the planet’s 6 billion inhabitants interact on a daily basis.

“What we are showing is the importance of the dynamic, flexible nature of real-world social networks,” Rand said. “Social networks are always shifting, and they’re not shifting in random ways. …..

Read the article

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• 5 New Social Networks You Should Know About (learningwithtechs.wordpress.com)
• Microsoft working on its own social network Socl (digitaltrends.com)
• wind2share – A Social Business Network Launches its Web Based Platform – PR Web (press release) (prweb.com)
• Why are social networks so popular? – San Francisco Chronicle (blog) (sfgate.com)

Even The Cleanest Wastewater Contributes To More ‘Super Bacteria’

 

Image via Wikipedia

From the 16 November 2011 Medical News Today article

A new University of Minnesota study reveals that the release of treated municipal wastewater – even wastewater treated by the highest-quality treatment technology – can have a significant effect on the quantities of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, often referred to as “superbacteria,” in surface waters.

The study also suggests that wastewater treated using standard technologies probably contains far greater quantities of antibiotic-resistant genes, but this likely goes unnoticed because background levels of bacteria are normally much higher than the water studied in this research.

The new study is led by civil engineering associate professor Timothy LaPara in the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering. The study is published in the most recent issue ofEnvironmental Science and Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society. The research was part of a unique class project in a graduate-level civil engineering class at the University of Minnesota focused on environmental microbiology.

 

Read the article

Related articles

• Wastewater treatment fosters antibiotic resistance? (junkscience.com)
• Major Wastewater Project Started on Tule River Reservation (indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com)
• Wastewater recycling can multiply greenhouse gas emissions (eurekalert.org)
• Researchers study micropollutants in wastewater (kitsapsun.com)
• EPA: To Regulate Disposal of Fracking Wastewater (abcnews.go.com)

New 2011 Survey of Patients with Complex Care Needs in Eleven Countries Finds That Care Is Often Poorly Coordinated

 

 

From the November 2011 Report

An international survey of adults living with health problems and complex care needs found that patients in the United States are much more likely than those in 10 other high-income countries to forgo needed care because of costs and to struggle with medical debt. In all the countries surveyed, patients who have a medical home reported better coordination of care, fewer medical errors, and greater satisfaction with care than those without one.
…
Key Findings

• Sicker adults in the U.S. stood out for having cost and access problems. More than one of four (27%) were unable to pay or encountered serious problems paying medical bills in the past year, compared with between 1 percent and 14 percent of adults in the other countries. In the U.S., 42 percent reported not visiting a doctor, not filling a prescription, or not getting recommended care. This is twice the rate for every other country but Australia, New Zealand, and Germany.
• In the U.S., cost-related access problems and medical bill burdens were concentrated among adults under age 65. Compared with Medicare-aged adults 65 or older, adults under 65 were far more likely to go without care because of the cost or to have problems paying bills.
• Adults with complex care needs who received care from a medical home—an accessible primary care practice that knows their medical history and helps coordinate care—were less likely to report experiencing medical errors, test duplication, and other care coordination failures. They were also more likely to report having arrangements for follow-up care after a hospitalization and more likely to rate their care highly.
• Sicker adults in the U.K. and Switzerland were the most likely to have a medical home: nearly three-quarters were connected to practices that have medical home characteristics, compared with around half in most of the other countries.

Read the entire report

Related articles

• New international health survey of sicker adults: Those with a medical home fare better (medicalxpress.com)
• Errors less likely in those with a ‘medical home’ (ctv.ca)
• Study: U.S. Pays More, but Health Care Is Worse (webmd.com)
• Sicker Adults With A Medical Home Fare Better (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Medical homes (philippehavinh.wordpress.com)
• International Health Survey: Americans Worse Off? (abcnews.go.com)
• Cheaper Care for Special Needs Children (lawprofessors.typepad.com)
• Poor Sick People: U.S. Offers Raw Deal for the Unhealthy (dailyfinance.com)

Can vaccine recommendations be based solely on individual and public health?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_cow_pock.jpg

by WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, MD at KevinMD.com (Nov. 15, 2011)

In this cartoon, the British satirist James Gillray caricatured a scene at the Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital at St. Pancras, showing Edward Jenner administering cowpox vaccine to frightened young women, and cows emerging from different parts of people’s bodies. The cartoon was inspired by the controversy over inoculating against the dreaded disease, smallpox. The inoculation agent, cowpox vaccine, was rumored to have the ability to sprout cow-like appendages. A serene Edward Jenner stands amid the crowd. A boy next to Jenner holds a container labeled “VACCINE POCK hot from ye COW”; papers in the boy’s pocket are labeled “Benefits of the Vaccine”. The tub on the desk next to Jenner is labeled “OPENING MIXTURE”. A bottle next to the tub is labeled “VOMIT”. The painting on the wall depictsworshippers of the Golden Calf.

Have you heard the parable about the blind men and the elephant? Each is holding a different part of the animal and comes to a different conclusion about what he’s dealing with. The man holding the tail is sure it’s a rope; the one with the trunk fears a snake; the one holding the tusk is certain he has a spear. It’s all in their perspective. They’ll need to share what they each know and consider the others’ perspectives if they have any hope of understanding the true scope of what they’re facing.

And so it is when a group sits down to talk about the cost-effectiveness of vaccines. If you’re a parent who lost your child to meningitis, the cost of a vaccine dose is trivial. However, if you’re considering this from the population-based, public health decision-making perspective, the annual price tag of $387 million to administer meningococcal booster doses to all 16-year-olds is anything but trivial. If you sit on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, considering, discussing and deciding how much weight to give each of these perspectives and many others is now all in a day’s work.

Read the entire article

Related articles

• Cost vs. public health (thehill.com)
• Are there any risks in having my child vaccinated? (zocdoc.com)
• More Than 690,000 Americans Have Already Been Vaccinated Against The Flu This Season, SDI Reports – Cdc Supports Expanded Access To Flu Vaccination (prweb.com)
• Childhood Immunizations and Vaccinations | Special Edition | Education.com (education.com)
• Stronger flu shots, more side effects (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Panel says boys should get HPV vaccine, too (sfgate.com)
• CDC Panel Recommends HPV Vaccine for Boys (onebluestocking.wordpress.com)
• Letter: Republicans and the HPV Vaccine (nytimes.com)

Why We Must Occupy Healthcare

Image via Wikipedia

by MARK RYAN, MD at KevinMD.com

Why do we need to occupy healthcare?  Why are we here, on this website, calling for change?  We are so often told that America has the best healthcare system in the world.  If that were so, then there would be no need to change anything.  We could continue running things as we currently are, and all would be well …

Except that we do not have the best healthcare system in the world.  And we do need to change our current dysfunctional system.

When I make this statement, naysayers usually point out that America is the destination of choice for people all over the world who come here for care of their complicated medical problems.  Advanced cancer, for example — the US is apparently the place to be if you need high tech, high-intensity care.  Another argument is that patients come here to jump the line to get hip surgery or heart surgery that would require a much longer wait in their original country… although it is not often that this claim is supported with evidence that the procedure in question could not have waited.

So: I have staked a position, one that is contrary to the common wisdom.  I have made the claim that American healthcare is not the best in the world.  It is now necessary to defend this position:

• American healthcare is not #1 in the world.  In this World Health Organization (WHO) analysis, the US ranks 37th.  We place just behind Costa Rica.  Other nations that outrank us: Dominica, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Greece, Colombia, and Morocco.  Just below us: Slovenia, Cuba, Brunei, New Zealand.  Essentially every developed nation in the Western Hemisphere performs better than we do.
• It’s worse than it looks. As this analysis shows, we are 39th in infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, and 42nd for adult male mortality and some of the US’s quality measures have not increased as much as other nations’.
• We rank last among seven developed Western-style democracies in US healthcare performance (graphic here).  We ranked 7th out of seven in efficiency, equity and “long, healthy, productive lives” 6th in quality care, and tied for 6th in access.  This last category (access) is ironic, given that many of the arguments against reforming the US healthcare system focus on the potential loss of patients’ access to their physician; it appears this access is not as robust as we might believe.
• Our healthcare spending per capita is 50% greater than the next highest nation’s, and our healthcare spending in the US is increasing faster than most other nations’, and the % of national GDP spent on healthcare in the US is the highest in the world (reference here).
• According to this just-released report from the Commonwealth Fund, the US scored 64 out of 100 points and lagged behind other developed nations.  You can see the short version of the report here.

Read the entire article

Related articles

• Americans pay top dollar for healthcare (elkrapidslive.com)
• Investing more in healthcare (medicine.com.my)
• Americans line up for free healthcare (rt.com)

Patients want to understand the medical literature (with links to resources for patients)

http://medicalcenter.osu.edu/patientcare/library_for_health_information/Pages/index.aspx

From the Science Intelligence blog item

Findings of a recent  study by JISC:

Publishing a lay summary alongside every research article could be the answer to assisting in the wider understanding of health-related information. 

Patients Participate! asked patients, the public, medical research charities and the research community, ‘How can we work together in making sense of scientific literature, to truly open up research findings for everyone who is interested?’ The answer came from patients who explained that they want easy-to-understand, evidence-based information relating to biomedical and health research. 

Some universities now offer researchers training in communicating with lay audiences. (…)

JISC believes that publicly-funded research should be made available for everyone and be easy to find. JISC funded this work to show how making access to scientific literature enables citizen-patients to participate in the research process, therefore providing mutual understanding and better links between scientists, medic, patients and the general public.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2011/10/participate.aspx

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“Summaries for Patients” and other plain language summaries help patients and others understand medical studies and guidelines

“Summaries for Patients

“Summaries for Patients” are brief, non-technical summaries of studies and clinical guidelines published inAnnals of Internal Medicine. The Summaries aim to explain these published articles to people who are not health care providers.

• Summaries about studies describe how researchers did the published study and what they found.
• Summaries about clinical guidelines describe the official recommendations for patient care developed by official groups such as the US Preventive Services Task Force or the American College of Physicians.

To search for summaries, click on New Search (top of middle column) at “Summaries for Patients”
Once at the New Search Page (http://www.annals.org/search), be sure to check Summaries for Patients , under Limit Results by Section (Articles Published After 1927)

Here are excerpts from a recent Summaries for Patients, Who Reports Having More Pain at the End of Life?

What is the problem and what is known about it so far?

Pain at the end of life is everyone’s great fear, but we still do not know enough about what makes pain worse at the end of life. Studies of pain near death have mostly looked at specific types of patients, such as those with cancer or those who are in a hospice program in which a patient’s comfort and reducing pain is a main focus of care. Other studies have asked family members about their deceased or dying relative’s experience of pain in the last months of life, but these reports are affected by their feelings about the pain of their loved one. In addition, studies have generally not examined patients from national surveys that offer broader understanding of patients’ experience of moderate to clinically significant pain at the end of life.

What did the researchers find?

Among the more than 4700 patients in the study, about 25% had clinically significant pain. However, the proportion experiencing significant pain increased to nearly 50% in the last 4 months before death. One of the most important things that affected the amount of pain was having arthritis. Surprisingly, the reason that a person was dying, such as heart disease or cancer, was not associated with important differences in the amount of pain.

What were the limitations of the study?

No information about treatment for pain was provided, and the study did not follow specific patients over time to see how their pain changed. Some people with arthritis might have had pain from something else that they mistakenly thought was arthritis.

What are the implications of the study?

Physicians and patients are not good at knowing when death is close, so it is important long before the last few months of life to discuss pain and ways to reduce it. Arthritis may be an important cause of pain or death that could be reduced by lifestyle changes long before death.

patientINFORM plain language summary Web sites are provided by participating publishers to help patients or their caregivers more fully understand the implications of research and to provide links to the full text of research articles they’ve selected from participating journals. The publishers allow readers following links from patientINFORM material on the health organizations’ sites to access the full text of these articles without a subscription, and they provide patients and caregivers with free or reduced-fee access to other articles in participating journals.

• American Cancer Society (News Center)
• American Association for the Advancement of Science  (Eureka Alert- Medicine and Health)
• American Diabetes Association (Access: Diabetes Research)
• American Heart Association
• Lupus Foundation of America (Research Summaries)
• National Breast Cancer Coalition
• National Organization for Rare Disorders
• American Society of Hematology Articles for patients from the ASH education book can be accessed via the patient section of ASH’s web site under Other Resources.
• Journal of Rehabilitation Research and DevelopmentFor its nontechnical readers (e.g., veterans, patients, and caregivers), JRRD publishes plain-language summaries in each issue that describe the purpose and explain who may benefit from the research. These summaries are useful tools that keep patients and interested individuals informed of current research and encourage discussion of research between patients and their healthcare providers.

The Cochrane Collaboration

Working together to provide the best evidence for health care

Cochrane Collaboration provides systematic reviews of the strongest evidence available about healthcare interventions (as drugs and medical procedures).  It does not cover all interventions, but those covered were reviewed  in-depth by experts in the medical and library fields.
The main activity of the Collaboration is the preparation of Cochrane reviews that are published electronically in successive issues of The Cochrane Library. These Cochrane reviews investigate the effects of interventions for prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. They also assess the accuracy of a diagnostic test for a given condition in a specific patient group and setting.
[Click here to find more information about the use of the evidence to inform decision making in health care ]

Here is how to find plain language  and audio summaries of Cochrane reviews

• Go to the Cochrane Collaboration home page and scroll down to Browse Free Summaries.
  Topics include Breast Cancer, Dementia and Cognitive Improvement, and Complementary Medicine.
• Click on To the Cochrane Library in the upper right corner of the Cochrance Collaboration home page.
  This Cochrane Library search page has a Help page , and an Advanced Search option.
  
  

Related Blog Items 

• How to read a research paper (and also understand medical/health news items)

Cannot find a plain language summary with the above resources?

Consider asking a reference librarian for help at your local public, academic, or hospital library. Many academic and hospital libraries provide at least limited reference service to the public.
Call or email them for information about their services.

You may also contact me at jmflahiff@msncom.  I will do my best to reply within 48 hours.

Misleading information on health social sites (and tips on how to evaluate health/medical information)

http://www.shockmd.com/2008/09/05/youre-never-to-old-to-learn-computer-skills/

 

 

From the Science Intelligence and InfoPros site

Social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube can be powerful platforms to deliver and receive healthcare information, especially for patients and caregivers who are increasingly going online to connect and share experiences with others with similar medical issues or concerns. However, these sites may lack patient-centered information and can also be sources of misleading information that could potentially do more harm than good, according to the results of two separate social media-related studies…
Medical News Today: 1st of November, 2011.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/236877.php
iHealthBeat:
http://m.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2011/11/1/researchers-say-online-health-information-could-be-misleading.aspx

 

 

And, of course, when looking for or evaluating health information….it is always a good idea to consult with a healthcare professional and/or a professional librarian.

At the very least… evaluate the information objectively!

 

 

Related articles and Web sites

How to evaluate medical and health information

• Evaluating Internet health information (Penn State)
• Evaluating Medical Research Findings and Clinical Trials (Family Caregiver Alliance)
• A Consumer’s Guide to Taking Charge of Health Information (Harvard Center for Risk Alliance)
• Evaluating Health Information on the Internet (National Cancer Institute)
• Quackwatch: Your Guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions (Stephen Barrett, M.D.)

Great starting places for quality health and medical information

• MedlinePlus (US National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health)
  Links to information on over 700 diseases/conditions, drugs & supplements, videos & tools (as health calculators, anatomy     videos, directories (as Find an Eye Doctor), and links to organizations

• UpToDate For Patients
  Click on the Patient Information tab to find free information written for patients. These topics help one to learn more about a medical condition, better understand management and treatment options, and have a better dialogue with health care providers. This free information is adapted from the subscription based service UpToDate (which is for and by physicians and researchers).
• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  Includes Health Topics A to Z, and sections  as Diseases and Conditions as  Healthy Living
• eMedicine Consumer Health
  Comprehensive continuously updated health and medical information written by physicians. Information on specific diseases/conditions includes overviews, causes, diagnosis, treatments, outlook, and additional links. Slideshows, images, pictures,medications, and quizzes.
  emedicine.com is geared towards health professionals. However it is free to all who register.

•  But Wait, There’s More!
• Online consumer health guides, as Consumer Health (University of Toledo), Consumer Health (University of Florida), Consumer Health Guide (University of California)
  Libguides are written by librarians on every subject imaginable. They are free to all.
• Never underestimate the finding power of a librarian.

Many academic and medical institutions offer at least some reference services to the general public.  Be sure to ask for a reference librarian. He or she not only has a master’s degree in Library Science, but often additional related education in health related areas.

• Consumer Health Toolkit for Library Staff  (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Healthy Roads Media  and other sources of quality health information in many languages and multiple formats (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Misleading Statistical Information in Ads: A Drug Ad Analyzed and Related Evaluation Resources(jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Purchasing Pet Drugs Online: Buyer Beware (video) (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Meet e-patient Dave – a voice of patient engagement (and related resources) (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• When PubMed searching yields few good results – 28 biomedical literature search tools evaluated (jflahiff.wordpress.com)

Consult with a librarian to find information more efficiently and effectively! (peer reviewed study summary)

 

http://www.rluk.ac.uk/node/657

From the Science Intelligence blog item

A recent study has has found quantitative evidence of a significant difference in search performance between paediatric residents or interns assisted by a librarian and those searching the literature alone.

Each participant searched PubMed and other online sources, performing pre-determined tasks including the formulation of a clinical question, retrieval and selection of bibliographic records. In the assisted group, participants were supported by a librarian with ≥5 years of experience. The primary outcome was the success of search sessions, scored against a specific assessment tool.

To read in Health information and Libraries Journal:***
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2011.00957.x/abstract

*** This article is only available online through paid subscription.

 For suggestions on how to get this article for free or at low cost, click here.