state watchdog agencies including the CMC failed to protect patients from dangerous doctors
http://m.news.com.au/QLD/pg/0/fi1554357.htm
"It is plainly not possible for a trust to be, and to be seen to be, 'independent' in investigating a death which may have been caused or contributed to by failures of its own staff or systems."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/26/campaign-deaths-mental-health-patients
Sympathectomy has been discredited in this condition
Vasospastic conditions
Raynaud’s syndrome
http://surgeryonline.wordpress.com/category/arterial-disorders/
(but you would not know this by reading the websites of the many vascular surgeons offering this 'cure')
a rare move by a US panel editing the universal diagnostic manual to drop two unpopular proposals for new diagnoses
The decision to back away from a proposed diagnosis of “attenuated psychosis syndrome" – for people at risk of developing psychosis, and from “mixed anxiety depressive disorder” – for people with a mixed state of both illnesses, was a welcome respite from the relentless push to expand the boundaries of pathology, experts said.
The American Psychiatric Association panel in charge of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) also modified the definition of depression to ensure that people experiencing normal grief over the death of a family member or a job loss would not be included.
Professor Gordon Parker, Scentia Professor in the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, said there had been “great concern in the community over the past 10 years in particular about what you could call ‘psychiatric imperialism’ – where the boundaries of categorising psychiatric disorders has moved from the clearly pathological down into the more normal. There’s that background concern that does need to be respected.”
http://theconversation.edu.au/backdown-on-new-psychiatric-diagnoses-a-welcome-respite-7092
The American Psychiatric Association panel in charge of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) also modified the definition of depression to ensure that people experiencing normal grief over the death of a family member or a job loss would not be included.
Professor Gordon Parker, Scentia Professor in the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, said there had been “great concern in the community over the past 10 years in particular about what you could call ‘psychiatric imperialism’ – where the boundaries of categorising psychiatric disorders has moved from the clearly pathological down into the more normal. There’s that background concern that does need to be respected.”
http://theconversation.edu.au/backdown-on-new-psychiatric-diagnoses-a-welcome-respite-7092
major trial of epoetin misled the medical community about the anemia drug’s risks and benefits-and helped make Amgen rich
http://the-scientist.com/2012/05/14/opinion-misleading-drug-trials/
Qld doctor accused of killing patients
Police in Queensland will this week be asked to launch a murder investigation into claims a doctor killed patients.
Former independent Queensland MP Rob Messenger gave taped interviews of a former colleague of the doctor to media and the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC).
On the tape, the whistleblower doctor accuses his former colleague of at least two killings.
One of the incidents involved oxygen being turned down on a patient on life support, which prematurely killed the woman against her wishes.
On another occasion, a surgeon had to restrain the doctor for 15 minutes to stop him from hurting a patient.
"He was prepared to kill people if it saved his authority from being questioned," the doctor said in the recording.
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said that the doctor was still employed by Queensland Health but had been separated from patients.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10805741
Former independent Queensland MP Rob Messenger gave taped interviews of a former colleague of the doctor to media and the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC).
On the tape, the whistleblower doctor accuses his former colleague of at least two killings.
One of the incidents involved oxygen being turned down on a patient on life support, which prematurely killed the woman against her wishes.
On another occasion, a surgeon had to restrain the doctor for 15 minutes to stop him from hurting a patient.
"He was prepared to kill people if it saved his authority from being questioned," the doctor said in the recording.
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said that the doctor was still employed by Queensland Health but had been separated from patients.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10805741
Use of stellate ganglion block for the treatment of psychiatric and behavioral disorders
The present invention is directed to a method for the treatment of a patient suffering from psychiatric and behavioral disorders, including post partum depression, post traumatic stress disorder, compulsive smoking, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, gambling addiction, comprising the step of administering a stellate ganglion block to the patient to alleviate the symptoms. The stellate ganglion block may be followed by a sympathectomy to provide permanent relief.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0135871.html
Kind Code: A1
The courts have become the sole policing body for the medical profession, and malpractice lawyers have taken on the role of public prosecutors
Major lawsuits, with the major judgments that go with them, may not completely keep negligent physicians from practicing, but they are the one way that currently exists to deter these individuals from practicing their inept brand of medicine. "
Over the years, we have given a lot of thought to why the medical profession adheres to this code of silence. What is it about this profession that causes it to protect its own at the expense of the public?"
Harvey F. Wachsman: Lethal Medicine
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
Retractions (fraud) on the rise
Get Science News From The New York Times »
Source: Journal of Medical Ethics
The highest “retraction index” in the study went to one of the world’s leading medical journals, The New England Journal of Medicine. In a statement for this article, it questioned the study’s methodology, noting that it considered only papers with abstracts, which are included in a small fraction of studies published in each issue. “Because our denominator was low, the index was high,” the statement said.
In October 2011, for example, the journal Nature reported that published retractions had increased tenfold over the past decade, while the number of published papers had increased by just 44 percent. In 2010 The Journal of Medical Ethics published a study finding the new raft of recent retractions was a mix of misconduct and honest scientific mistakes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/science/rise-in-scientific-journal-retractions-prompts-calls-for-reform.html?_r=2&src=dayp&pagewanted=all
too many bioethicists are being funded by Big Pharma
Gadfly: a person who annoys or criticizes others in order to provoke them into action (Oxford English Dictionary). There is no better word to describe Carl Elliott, a University of Minnesota bioethicist who is probably the profession’s most savage critic. In his column in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week, he returned to a favourite theme: the dangers of cosying up to the pharmaceutical industry. He complains that too many bioethicists are being funded by Big Pharma, which Dr Elliott tends to describe as a Mafia network.
He writes:
He writes:
“If there is anything surprising about the upsurge in pharma-funded bioethics, it is that it has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in criminal behavior by the pharmaceutical industry: fraud, illegal marketing, ghostwriting, tax evasion, kickbacks, and bribery…
“Apparently, many bioethicists see nothing unseemly about sharing in profits generated by criminal activity. In fact, the bioethicists working with industry are often among the most prominent in the field. If anything, an association with the pharmaceutical industry has become a mark of professional success. What does this say about the future of bioethics?”
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10056
behavioral therapy, psychiatry, shock therapy
A controversy has erupted in Massachusetts over the use of skin shock therapy for troubled teenagers. The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in the suburb of Canton is a facility for people with severe emotional, behavioural and psychiatric problems, including autism. It is the only institution in the US which uses shock therapy – a 2-second application to the skin which feels like a pinch, or, its critics say, a bee sting. About half of its 250 students are treated this way.
This week, a graphic video from 2002 showing a restrained teenager screaming in pain while staff administered 31 shocks galvanised opponents into obtaining more than 200,000 signatures on a on-line petition to state legislators – although it included only 9,000 Massachusetts residents.
The JRC claims that its intensive behavioural therapies have successfully “treated the most difficult behaviours in the nation, often children and young adults who had been confined to psychiatric hospitals because their behaviour disorders could not be effectively treated”. It argues that the shocks are only given after a court and a child’s parents have approved. The alternative, it says, is drugging children and warehousing them in a mental hospital – which is a kind of torture.
Its critics say that electric shock therapy is the kind of torture would not be allowed in a prison. They have even managed to get the Manfred Nowak, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture, to ask the US government to investigate the institution. "Of course here they might say, but this is for a good purpose because it is for medical treatment,” Nowak told ABC in 2010. “But even for a good purpose -- because the same is to get from a terrorist information about a future attack, is a good purpose. To get from a criminal a confession is a good purpose.
A health writer in Time magazine, Maia Szalavitz, has written a book on the troubled-teen industry. She is a bitter critic of the JRC and says that it has never published a single peer-reviewed paper which demonstrates that the technique is successful. She dismisses glowing reports from parents as mere anecdotes.
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10060
This week, a graphic video from 2002 showing a restrained teenager screaming in pain while staff administered 31 shocks galvanised opponents into obtaining more than 200,000 signatures on a on-line petition to state legislators – although it included only 9,000 Massachusetts residents.
The JRC founder, Matthew L. Israel, a behavioural psychologist who trained with Harvard’s B.F. Skinner, was forced to step down last year over an incident in which staff gave two teenagers dozens of shocks after receiving orders from a prank phone call.
In the heat of claim and counter-claim, it is hard to know whether the therapy is mild and helpful or severe and abusive.The JRC claims that its intensive behavioural therapies have successfully “treated the most difficult behaviours in the nation, often children and young adults who had been confined to psychiatric hospitals because their behaviour disorders could not be effectively treated”. It argues that the shocks are only given after a court and a child’s parents have approved. The alternative, it says, is drugging children and warehousing them in a mental hospital – which is a kind of torture.
Its critics say that electric shock therapy is the kind of torture would not be allowed in a prison. They have even managed to get the Manfred Nowak, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture, to ask the US government to investigate the institution. "Of course here they might say, but this is for a good purpose because it is for medical treatment,” Nowak told ABC in 2010. “But even for a good purpose -- because the same is to get from a terrorist information about a future attack, is a good purpose. To get from a criminal a confession is a good purpose.
A health writer in Time magazine, Maia Szalavitz, has written a book on the troubled-teen industry. She is a bitter critic of the JRC and says that it has never published a single peer-reviewed paper which demonstrates that the technique is successful. She dismisses glowing reports from parents as mere anecdotes.
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10060
"Alarming cracks” in the edifice of science
The New York Times highlights the belief of the editor of the journal Infection and Immunity, Ferric C. Fang, that a ten-fold increase in the number of retractions over the past ten years is a symptom of "a dysfunctional scientific climate". And in an opinion piece in Nature, the co-director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University, Daniel Sarewitz, speaks darkly of "alarming cracks" in the scientific edifice which are eroding public trust.
Dr Fang recently issued a call for root-and-branch reform in an eloquent editorial in his journal.
"The present system," he writes, "provides ... potent incentives for behaviors that are detrimental to science and scientists." "You can't afford to fail, to have your hypothesis disproven," Dr. Fang told the Times. "It's a small minority of scientists who engage in frank misconduct. It's a much more insidious thing that you feel compelled to put the best face on everything."
Dr Sarewitz also calls for change to eliminate bias. "Science's internal controls on bias [are] failing, and bias and error [are] trending in the same direction -- towards the pervasive over-selection and over-reporting of false positive results." Significantly for bioethics, he says that "the cracks in the edifice are showing up first in the biomedical realm, because research results are constantly put to the practical test of improving human health".
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10059
Dr Fang recently issued a call for root-and-branch reform in an eloquent editorial in his journal.
"The present system," he writes, "provides ... potent incentives for behaviors that are detrimental to science and scientists." "You can't afford to fail, to have your hypothesis disproven," Dr. Fang told the Times. "It's a small minority of scientists who engage in frank misconduct. It's a much more insidious thing that you feel compelled to put the best face on everything."
Dr Sarewitz also calls for change to eliminate bias. "Science's internal controls on bias [are] failing, and bias and error [are] trending in the same direction -- towards the pervasive over-selection and over-reporting of false positive results." Significantly for bioethics, he says that "the cracks in the edifice are showing up first in the biomedical realm, because research results are constantly put to the practical test of improving human health".
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10059
Number of sympathectomies - ETS - is on the increase in Australia - the power of medical advertising
years 2000 - 2001:
Total: 1034
years 2001-2002:
Total: 1575
years 2002 - 2003
Total: 1228
years 2003 - 2004
Total: 1193
years 2004 - 2005
Total: 1483
years 2005 - 2006
Total:1358
years 2006 - 2007
Total: 972
years 2007 - 2008
Total: 850
years 2008 - 2009
Total: 891
years 2009 - 2010
Total: 1083
source: aihw.gov.au
Total: 1034
years 2001-2002:
Total: 1575
years 2002 - 2003
Total: 1228
years 2003 - 2004
Total: 1193
years 2004 - 2005
Total: 1483
years 2005 - 2006
Total:1358
years 2006 - 2007
Total: 972
years 2007 - 2008
Total: 850
years 2008 - 2009
Total: 891
years 2009 - 2010
Total: 1083
source: aihw.gov.au
Sting Operation Exposes Gaps in Oversight of Human Experiments
Thousands of medical research groups that monitor clinical trials on behalf of the drug industry may face tougher regulations in the wake of a congressional sting operation that found gaps in the nation's oversight of experiments on humans.
The sting, detailed at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, involved the creation of a fictitious company and a fake medical device, a surgical adhesive gel. The sham firm then applied to three for-profit oversight groups -- called institutional review boards, or IRBs -- for approval to begin a clinical trial using their adhesive on human subjects.
Two IRBs contacted by the GAO's sting operators -- Argus IRB of Arizona and Fox IRB of Illinois -- rejected the Adhesiabloc proposal because of unanswered safety questions.
Coast IRB LLC of Colorado Springs, Colo., did approve a study for the fictitious adhesive gel, "Adhesiabloc." Five months after approving the study for abdominal surgery patients, Coast learned that neither Adhesiabloc nor its maker, Device Med-Systems of Virginia, existed.
Coast CEO Dan Dueber said in an interview that the congressional case was illegal entrapment. At the hearing, Mr. Dueber testified, "The GAO perpetrated an extensive fraud against my company. You pulled the wool over our eyes -- congratulations." Because the product was fake, it was never used.
As part of the sting, the committee also created a sham IRB to see whether the Department of Health and Human Services, which registers IRBs, would certify their fictitious group.
The committee, working with the Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigatory arm, named the CEO of the fake IRB Truper Dawg, after a staffer's three-legged dog, now deceased. Other fake names included "April Phuls" and "Timothy Wittless," which lawmakers said should have signaled irregularities to HHS. The department registered the IRB.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123811179572353181.html
The sting, detailed at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, involved the creation of a fictitious company and a fake medical device, a surgical adhesive gel. The sham firm then applied to three for-profit oversight groups -- called institutional review boards, or IRBs -- for approval to begin a clinical trial using their adhesive on human subjects.
Two IRBs contacted by the GAO's sting operators -- Argus IRB of Arizona and Fox IRB of Illinois -- rejected the Adhesiabloc proposal because of unanswered safety questions.
Coast IRB LLC of Colorado Springs, Colo., did approve a study for the fictitious adhesive gel, "Adhesiabloc." Five months after approving the study for abdominal surgery patients, Coast learned that neither Adhesiabloc nor its maker, Device Med-Systems of Virginia, existed.
Coast CEO Dan Dueber said in an interview that the congressional case was illegal entrapment. At the hearing, Mr. Dueber testified, "The GAO perpetrated an extensive fraud against my company. You pulled the wool over our eyes -- congratulations." Because the product was fake, it was never used.
As part of the sting, the committee also created a sham IRB to see whether the Department of Health and Human Services, which registers IRBs, would certify their fictitious group.
The committee, working with the Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigatory arm, named the CEO of the fake IRB Truper Dawg, after a staffer's three-legged dog, now deceased. Other fake names included "April Phuls" and "Timothy Wittless," which lawmakers said should have signaled irregularities to HHS. The department registered the IRB.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123811179572353181.html
it is now Dr. Wakefield's turn to be exonerated
Mr. Justice Mitting's scathing indictment of GMC's unprofessional and dishonest handling of the Dr. Wakefield case is telling, as it once again calls into question the legitimacy of any of the claims made against Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues concerning their observational, peer-reviewed study. It only further reinforces what has already come to light about the blatant fraud that is the continued witch hunt against Dr. Wakefield for his independent work.
"The welcome decision to exonerate Prof. Walker-Smith is a clear indication that the GMC's case against the Royal Free doctors was manufactured to discredit any association between bowel disease, autism conditions and some of the parents' reported link to the MMR vaccine," writes Age of Autism. "The allegations leveled at Prof. Walker-Smith and the Royal Free team now have to be viewed with total skepticism as nothing more than a witch hunt by vested interests at the highest levels in government, media and the pharmaceutical industry."
This ruling will clearly bolster the efforts of Dr. Wakefield to vindicate his own reputation and career, including his recent lawsuit against Brian Deer, BMJ, and BMJ editor Fiona Godlee, all of which have repeatedly spread lies and slander about Dr. Wakefield and his paper (http://www.naturalnews.com/034974_Andrew_Wakefield_BMJ_lawsuit.html).
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035256_Professor_Walker-Smith_MMR_vaccines_High_Court.html#ixzz1uFbANzgz
"The welcome decision to exonerate Prof. Walker-Smith is a clear indication that the GMC's case against the Royal Free doctors was manufactured to discredit any association between bowel disease, autism conditions and some of the parents' reported link to the MMR vaccine," writes Age of Autism. "The allegations leveled at Prof. Walker-Smith and the Royal Free team now have to be viewed with total skepticism as nothing more than a witch hunt by vested interests at the highest levels in government, media and the pharmaceutical industry."
This ruling will clearly bolster the efforts of Dr. Wakefield to vindicate his own reputation and career, including his recent lawsuit against Brian Deer, BMJ, and BMJ editor Fiona Godlee, all of which have repeatedly spread lies and slander about Dr. Wakefield and his paper (http://www.naturalnews.com/034974_Andrew_Wakefield_BMJ_lawsuit.html).
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035256_Professor_Walker-Smith_MMR_vaccines_High_Court.html#ixzz1uFbANzgz
The participation of physicians in torture and murder both before and after World War II is a disturbing legacy
More than 7% of all German physicians became members of the Nazi SS during World War II, compared with less than 1% of the general population. In so doing, these doctors willingly participated in genocide, something that should have been antithetical to the values of their chosen profession. The participation of physicians in torture and murder both before and after World War II is a disturbing legacy seldom discussed in medical school, and underrecognised in contemporary medicine. Is there something inherent in being a physician that promotes a transition from healer to murderer? With this historical background in mind, the author, a medical student, defines and reflects upon moral vulnerabilities still endemic to contemporary medical culture.
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/05/02/medethics-2011-100372.abstract
Alessandra Colaianni, of Johns Hopkins Medical School, asks the unsettling question: "Is there something inherent in being a physician that promotes a transition from healer to murderer?" Some recent situations in the United States suggest that this is possible: allegations of euthanasia in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, torture of Guantanamo detainees, and the participation of doctors in capital punishment. Colaianni suggests that there are illuminating parallels between medical training and the work of doctors in Auschwitz.
Socialisation and hierarchy: doctors are pressured to conform to group norms, often with techniques like "Sleep deprivation, heightened stress levels and fear of failure". Ambition: just as Nazi doctors participated in the T4 euthanasia program to advance their careers, today's doctors are pressured to succeed even at the risk of losing their integrity. Doctors have a "licence to sin" which can easily be perverted: some "actions are allowed when they are performed by physicians, but are the stuff of horror films and criminal cases when non-licensed personnel attempt them."
Detachment was also a characteristic of Nazi doctors. They could select prisoners by day and dine with their colleagues by night: "the medical profession requires unflappability in the face of things that others would consider disgusting, horrific, or otherwise overwhelming".
Colaianni concludes that medical students need to realise how vulnerable they are to being seduced by the special privileges of their profession. "It is for this reason that a solid grounding in principles of ethics, individualism and human rights is so crucial for physicians and others in positions of power or trust."
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10042
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/05/02/medethics-2011-100372.abstract
Alessandra Colaianni, of Johns Hopkins Medical School, asks the unsettling question: "Is there something inherent in being a physician that promotes a transition from healer to murderer?" Some recent situations in the United States suggest that this is possible: allegations of euthanasia in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, torture of Guantanamo detainees, and the participation of doctors in capital punishment. Colaianni suggests that there are illuminating parallels between medical training and the work of doctors in Auschwitz.
Socialisation and hierarchy: doctors are pressured to conform to group norms, often with techniques like "Sleep deprivation, heightened stress levels and fear of failure". Ambition: just as Nazi doctors participated in the T4 euthanasia program to advance their careers, today's doctors are pressured to succeed even at the risk of losing their integrity. Doctors have a "licence to sin" which can easily be perverted: some "actions are allowed when they are performed by physicians, but are the stuff of horror films and criminal cases when non-licensed personnel attempt them."
Detachment was also a characteristic of Nazi doctors. They could select prisoners by day and dine with their colleagues by night: "the medical profession requires unflappability in the face of things that others would consider disgusting, horrific, or otherwise overwhelming".
Colaianni concludes that medical students need to realise how vulnerable they are to being seduced by the special privileges of their profession. "It is for this reason that a solid grounding in principles of ethics, individualism and human rights is so crucial for physicians and others in positions of power or trust."
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10042
Surgeons fail to track PIP implants
The TGA instructed surgeons to contact every patient after they were found more likely to rupture and leak toxins. But three-quarters of the women who have made public submissions to the inquiry said they had to contact their surgeon.
Jodie Blake, a mother of four, said her surgeon even denied using PIP implants, despite issuing her a card stating she had been given the product. ''I wonder how many people they have said this to and who are unknowingly walking around with these ruptured PIP implants in their bodies or, worse still, breastfeeding their little babies with these unknown toxins? This could be disastrous,'' Ms Blake wrote.
A woman with ruptured implants said her surgeon blamed computer problems for not tracking her down. ''I find this a very poor explanation from all involved when my contact details have always been the same and two years have passed since the medical industry were informed of the product recall.''
A woman with ruptured implants said her surgeon blamed computer problems for not tracking her down. ''I find this a very poor explanation from all involved when my contact details have always been the same and two years have passed since the medical industry were informed of the product recall.''
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