Money Talks: Profits Before Patients
Commentary on commercial distortions of medical research by a former drug rep and several medical experts, including John Abramson, Jerome Hoffman, and Bob Goodman
Short Version - 8:29 minutes
Long version - 49:22 minutes
The End of Guidelines (as we know them)
A fun YouTube video about clinical guidelines: McCormack J. 2016.
4:58 minutes
Trials and Tribulations - On The Media - WNYC
How an NPR station gathered experts who promoted the use of antidepressants as effective and safe, yet each expert had undisclosed ties to the drug companies selling antidepressants. Nor did the host, who also had ties to pharma, include any experts with competing views even though many experts have raised concerns about overtreatment and drug safety. Jan 17, 2008
7 minutes
Harms of Overtreatment
Reporter Jeanne Lenzer investigates overtreatment at the heart of healthcare. Overly aggressive treatment is estimated to cause 30 000 deaths among Medicare recipients alone each year. Overall, unnecessary interventions are estimated to account for 10-30% of spending on healthcare in the US, or $250bn-800bn (£154bn-490bn; €190bn-610bn) annually. This video features Shannon Brownlee, acting director of the New America Health Policy Program and author of Overtreated: How Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, David Himmelstein, professor at the City University of New York School of Public Health, and Vikas Saini, a Harvard cardiologist and president of the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation. Read more about the problems of overtreatment in Jeanne Lenzer's feature article Unnecessary care: are doctors in denial and is profit driven healthcare to blame?
16:39 minutes