The manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines say they are 95% effective. Peter Doshi re-examined the evidence and estimates they are only 19-29% effective. This pre-print of an as-yet unpublished re-analysis raises many questions but doesn’t support the claims being made on antivaccine sites. A correspondent asked for my opinion about a study that he said has been appearing
Liquid biopsies can be used to reduce the amount of chemotherapy used for patients with stage II colon cancer. When a patient has cancer, cell-free tumor DNA circulates in the blood and can be detected in a peripheral blood sample. This is known as a “liquid biopsy,” and it has become a routine practice in
Diet recommendations based on DNA are not based on good science. When the human genome was first sequenced, some people optimistically assumed that we now knew (or soon would know) everything about human genetics and would be able to predict who would develop a disease and prescribe what each individual should do to ensure the
Caitlin Jensen’s chiropractor called 911 when she developed alarming symptoms after neck manipulation. She had a heart attack, was pulseless for 10 minutes, and suffered traumatic brain injury. Surgeons found dissections of 4 arteries in the neck. A month later, she remains paralyzed and is still in the ICU. I’ve been following the news reports
Fears of future infertility are keeping some parents from vaccinating their children for COVID-19. These fears are not supported by any evidence. A friend told me he had encountered a man who was fully vaccinated. This man says his whole family is vaccinated except his young 7-year-old daughter. He says he’s worried about the effect
Will an expensive, new, injectable, untested medication help people lose weight? Maybe! But right now, we don’t know if it’s safety and efficacy profiles make it worth the price. When I saw this headline on an article in The Week magazine, I was impressed. Diet and exercise, when combined with existing obesity drugs, typically result in only
Signos is asking customers to pay for the privilege of testing their glucose monitoring system. You may have seen the commercials for FreeStyle Libre devices. Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are intended to help improve management of diabetes in patients whose diabetes is not under good control, and also for patients who hate having to keep
Plenity is a new weight loss pill designed to create a sense of fullness. It is backed by a single study where users had an average weight loss of 22 pounds. Not an effective way to achieve ideal weight, but may help some people when combined with diet and exercise. I’ve been seeing TV commercials
In a trial of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), 2/3 of patients with chronic low back pain reported significant pain relief with psychotherapy that helped them reconceptualize the pain as nondangerous. Impressive if true, but flaws in research design make the study untrustworthy. I don’t usually get my medical information from Reader’s Digest, but when I read
Loren Pankratz’s book Patients Who Deceive covers the whole spectrum of different kinds of deception. It is well written, informative, and entertaining, with case examples that read like detective stories. As Dr. House says on the TV series, “Everybody lies”. Doctors know their patients can’t always be trusted to provide a complete and accurate history. For one
