- Drug industry now the biggest defrauder of the US government, as measured by False Claims Act payments.
- CT scans linked with cancer. Even worse, “doses of radiation from the scans varied wildly, according to the study, even within the same procedure at the same hospital. Some patients got only one-tenth the radiation that others got.” As if the concepts of calibration and maintenance are foreign to the operators of this exceedingly dangerous equipment.
- Fermentation in Montreal.
- Edward Jay Epstein on Hollywood’s Pirates of the Internet.
Thanks to Hal Pashler and Anne Weiss.
Re the radiation issue: I have been ridiculed for asking about maintenance and calibration issues at both medical and dental offices. Too many doctors and dentists are cavalier about radiation exposure for their patients!
JPB, what do you ask them? I suppose I should be asking about that too. (Though my doctor was already deflecting other questions, like about the type of contrast agent they’d use.)
JPD, the next time this happens I hope you will email me with the details (where, what was said, etc.) I would like to report this on my blog. There seems to be considerable room for improvement here.
Drug industry fraud, cavalier attitudes about radiation, there’s always something scary going on in the “health” professions.
All this just make me feel more comfortable with my tendency to stay away from doctors and hospitals.
I think I’ll start my own church — The Congregation of the Almighty Placebo.
Seth, I will certainly let you know if this happens again. One dentist told me that you get as much radiation from walking out to get the mail as you get from a dental X-ray. He was using very old machines, hence my query about calibration. He was very offended but I still declined!
There were several articles in the NY Times in the last year or so about the lack of oversight on the equipment used in imaging including those used in the irradiation of babies. We have cause to be concerned. I don’t understand why our medical professionals are not concerned also!