C M G Buttery

In the Lancet today is a valuable article on ”swine flu backlash” [Volume 375, Issue 9712, 30 Jan, 2010, Page 367] where the author considers whether the recent pandemic is the weakest on record, and how much the pharmaceutical industry and power politics caused needless waste of medical resources, engendering unnecessary fear. The author also [...]

From the Guttmacher Institute today we find that for the first time in more than a decade, the nation’s teen pregnancy rate rose 3% in 2006, reflecting increases in teen birth and abortion rates of 4% and 1%, respectively.. But, for the first time since the early 1990s, overall rates of pregnancy and birth—and, to [...]

The two selections from this week’s papers indicate that we prefer to rediscover behaviors rather than chang them, probably because it is easier to discuss them than change them. Behavioral science, like econmics, is a dismnal science when applied to tranlastional research that is important to the health of people.   Reducing Salt Use.         The [...]

The current issue of JAMA contains several excellent articles discussing the recent mammmogrpahy recommendations. In particular Dr. Steven Woolf discusses the problem of writing recommendations, bearing in mind the breast cancer activists and the media frenzies about perceived recommndations affecting health care, in the current health policy environment. 

Researchers at Tufts University analyzed the calorie content of 18 side dishes and entrees from national sit-down chain restaurants, 11 side dishes and entrees from national fast food restaurants and 10 frozen meals purchased from supermarkets. They compared their results to the calorie content information provided to the public by the restaurants and food companies. [...]

Another important editorial in this week’s BMJ comes from Professor Thomas Peris at U. Boston and describes the growth of the population over 80 and the health of those over 85. Maybe surprising to many is that most consider their health good. [BMJ 2009;339:b4715]  Comment: While this is a study in the UK there is [...]

Chris Del Mar in an editorial in the BMJ rightly credits primary care with championing prevention as a key priority for clinicians (something we now take for granted) and for increasing our understanding of what happens when patients talk to doctors, which has led to the concept of patient centredness. But the report goes on [...]

CHICAGO — Girls whose mothers were visited at home by nurses during pregnancy and the children’s infancy appear less likely to enter the criminal justice system by age 19, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The Nurse-Family Partnership Program costs about $7,000 per child. Benefit-cost analyses [...]

Using data from The 1993-2008 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the largest ongoing state-based health survey of US adults, has conducted interviews of more than 3,500,000 individuals; annual interviews started with 102,263 in 1993 and culminated with 406,749 in 2008. Investigators Haomiao Jia, PhD and Erica I. Lubetkin, MD, MPH, state, “Although life expectancy [...]