Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Public Health Roundup: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Treatment Often Wrong; Potential Cancer-Anxiety Link In Men
If your doctor diagnoses you with chronic fatigue syndrome, you’ll probably get two pieces of advice: Go to a psychotherapist and get some exercise. Your doctor might tell you that either of those treatments will give you a 60 percent chance of getting better and a 20 percent chance of recovering outright. After all, that’s what researchers concluded in a 2011 study published in the prestigious medical journal the Lancet, along with later analyses. Problem is, the study was bad science. And we’re now finding out exactly how bad. (Rehmeyer, 9/21)
Men over 40 who are plagued with the omnipresent of generalized anxiety disorder are more than twice as likely to die of cancer than are men who do not have the mental affliction, new research finds. But for women who suffer from severe anxiety, the research found no increased risk of cancer death. That finding, presented Tuesday at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology’s Congress in Vienna, emerges from the largest study ever to explore a link between anxiety and cancer. It tracked 15,938 Britons over 40 for 15 years. (Healy, 9/20)
[Keith] Berkle, a surgeon with Virginia Women’s Center, started offering hysterectomies at the surgery center — which operates on an outpatient basis, without beds where patients can spend the night — earlier this year. But since 2008, he has been performing laparoscopic hysterectomies, which involve using incisions of about a centimeter in length or less in a patient’s abdomen — VanRensselaer’s had three — to remove the uterus. Traditionally, hysterectomies have been performed as abdominal procedures in which physicians use large incisions to remove the uterus. That type of surgery is associated with greater risk, experts said. (Demeria, 9/20)
According to his influential 2007 report for the American Journal of Public Health, when you look at all wisdom teeth, the likelihood of developing a problem is closer to 20 percent. Friedman said there may be a financial incentive because wisdom teeth extractions make up a large part of dental practice income. (Benavides, 9/20)
