It’s always convenient to have somebody else to blame, but I’m afraid that doctors are mostly to blame on this one. They call them “hospital acquired infections” and they are killing patients who should otherwise be just fine.
Like this writer’s father, who walked into a ritzy New York academic hospital with what used to be called “walking pneumonia.” He went on to die of – you guessed it – a “hospital acquired infection.”
Walking pneumonia is basically an infection of the lungs that may cause a cough — or even a painful cough — and makes it hard to breathe. Typically, it does not hurt the patient’s general well being enough to make her or him an invalid, a hospital inpatient, or certainly not an intensive care inpatient. This guy’s dad should have easily made it home. Read more on Medical Science Develops Harmful Products…
Filed under Doctors, medical errors, medicine, News, Research by on Aug 16th, 2012. Comment. 
The idea of science attempting to study or explain the interaction between doctors and drug reps seems strange.
Doctors seem receptive to beautiful sales reps
So I checked out the original article that had been reviewed as objective science. I put it all together. I decided that none of the studies that were slopped together to make this meta-study were going to impress me. I can’t remember seeing anything that looked scientific as I poked around. We are talking about “naturalistic” studies here. Doctors really don’t seem to want to believe that anyone can control their thinking. Some might get contrarian and avoid prescribing things that are too aggressively presented. Maybe others do succumb. The idea that the drug reps bring a lecturer and somehow useful information might be exchanged is idealistic at best. Let us switch from science to reality. I remember the muscled male French drug reps they sent to me in the hospital. I remember when the dean of the medical school married a gorgeous female drug rep — a sort of midlife-change direction marriage — leaving behind someone who had once been described to me as a barracuda like entity. Read more on Influence Of Drug Reps On Physician’s Prescribing Habits…
Filed under big pharma by on Jan 12th, 2011. Comment.