Comments on: Therapy vs. Medication, Conflicts of Interest, and Intimidation

By: Deb

Deb — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:10:39 +0000

I am late to the story with this, but am pleased to see it highlighted here.

By: Alvaro

Alvaro — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:36:15 +0000

Hello Ginger,

JAMA’s reaction is being more surreal and dissapointing than reassuring, and perhaps bringing to surface several important biases (beyond publication) in our overall healthcare and societal culture:
- cognitive bias: how we conceptualize medical problems and therefore appropriate interventions
- research bias: what gets funded
- publication bias: not just what gets published but, as in this case, how
- reporting bias: what gets picked up in the media and how
- distribution bias: we have in place an extremely efficient process to prescribe and get pills to people; the opposite happens with non-invasive options.

Hopefully time and concerted efforts will help us understand how to best combine lifestyle with invasive with non-invasive options to accomplish a variety of health outcomes.

By: Ginger Campbell, MD

Ginger Campbell, MD — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:38:34 +0000

Thank you for the excellent overview of this issue. As a physician I knew that the JAMA editor was whining about something, but I had not taken the time to check the story out.

This story certainly emphasizing the on-going problem of apparent publication bias in favor of pharmaceutical solutions to all medical problems.