Minnesota Connect

Two different news stories about problems in bioethics caught my eye this week. The Wall Street Journal reports:

“…as the number of hospitals with ethics consulting services has grown in recent years, so have questions about how qualified some of these professionals are to render life-and-death advice. The complex ethical issues arising from new life-prolonging medical technologies are throwing up new challenges. And hospitals face potential legal liability if patients and families feel they haven’t been properly counseled or provided with all the information they need to make decisions.”

On a quite different theme, Scientific American profiles the problems of one bioethicist at one center. Excerpt:

“When Glenn McGee founded the Alden March Bioethics Institute (AMBI) at Albany Medical College in New York State in 2005, magazine articles and newspaper stories hailed the arrival of the man once described as “Socrates with a beeper.” Now, a month after his abrupt departure, former colleagues are painting a complex portrait that suggests the ethicist’s own personal and professional relationships may have led to the institute’s undoing.

OK, we’re not #1.

But we’re a busy little blog, as shown by the fact that this blog has just become the 5th most active blog out of 6,336 blogs with 15,465 authors hosted on the University of Minnesota Libraries.

What we rank 5th in is in the number of entries. Since September 2004, I’ve posted 866 entries on this site. And counting…….

Journalist Ray Moynihan reports on the role of the influential experts paid by industry to help “educate” the profession and the public. Excerpt:

In the world of medicine, “key opinion leader” is the somewhat Orwellian term used to describe the senior doctors who help drug companies sell drugs. These influential doctors are engaged by industry to advise on marketing and help boost sales of new medicines. Across all specialties, in hospitals and universities everywhere, many leading specialists are being paid generous fees to peddle influence on behalf of the world’s biggest drug companies.

Read the article and listen to the video clips with former drug rep Kimberly Elliott.

Moynihan’s concluding quote:

From time to time, I’ve highlighted how the Integrity in Science Watch project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest tracks news coverage (or lack thereof) of conflicts of interest in medicine and science.

This week’s offering:

• Cheer to Andrew Pollack of the New York Times for disclosing that Eric L. Matteson, chairman of rheumatology at the Mayo Clinic, has consulted for many companies developing arthritis medication. Matteson is author of a recent study examining the link between various arthritis medications and cancer.

• Jeer to Audrey Grayson of ABC News’ Medical Unit for failing to note that Michael J. Manos, head of the Pediatric Behavioral Health Center at the Cleveland Clinic’s Children’s Hospital, consulted and served on the speakers’ bureaus of Eli Lilly, McNeil Consumer and Specialty Pharmaceuticals, and Shire US. Manos was quoted supporting use of pharmaceuticals to treat Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder rather than St. Johns Wort.

Newhouse News Service reports:

Americans last year spent an estimated $13.2 billion — more than the gross domestic product of Bolivia — on cosmetic surgery.

What did they get?

An array of bodily rearrangements from face-lifts to buttock augmentation, from chemical skin peels to laser hair removal.

And Botox. Lots of Botox. In all, 2.8 million treatments with Botox injections, costing more than $1 billion.

In the past decade, surgical cosmetic procedures have more than doubled, and nonsurgical procedures — such as Botox injections — grew nearly eightfold. …

The latest statistics come from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Inc. Its report is based on 12,000 surveys sent to board-certified surgeons and physicians in plastic surgery, dermatology and otolaryngology.