Tag: medicine

PREVENTION – Are You Sure?

Dr. Levi Prevention is an interesting term. Most people would agree it’s a good thing.  If someone says, “take an asprin a day to prevent  heart attacks by 50%,” that sounds good. “Get a mammogram to prevent dying from breast cancer”.  People do it.  Besides, who wants to die from something that’s preventable? No one! But, how do you prove you prevented a disease? Ah, there’s the rub. It turns out that its not a very scientific process. Say someone gets the flu shot for 20 years and never gets the flu. They may say “the flu shot prevented it”. […]

A Medical Professor Reviews the System

This is an interview excerpt by Discover Magazine with Nortin Hadler M.D, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The full interview can be found here: http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jun/discover-dialogue Bypass surgery belongs in the medical archives . . . No Western European nation has as high a rate of bypass surgery and angioplasty as we do—and they live longer Under what circumstances do you think bypass surgery is appropriate? H: None. I think bypass surgery belongs in the medical archives. There are only two reasons you’d ever want to do it: one, to save lives, the […]