Practicing Rationale Medicine–Otis Brawley MD Keynote Address at the Association of Healthcare Journalists–Screenings, Treatments and More…

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society spoke at the Association of Healthcare Journalists.  This is good thing and well worth listening to.  He explains tests, marketing and treatments especially with cancer as that is his field, an oncologist.  He says we need doctors who appreciate science and better informed patients.  He says people in the US may not always live longer but we sure do a great job of taking pictures (medical imaging).

He says we don’t get what we pay for.  The video is well worth watching as he brings in the pharma side of all of this and he attacks insurance companies as well.  He also talks about screenings that are not needed and some old laws on the books relative to treatment that maybe don’t need to be there. 

Otis Brawley, MD

How We Do Harm is the name of his book.  He also gives his opinion of the Warren Buffett prostate cancer screening and talks about expected life and age as a factor as to whether or not screening would be a good idea. 

As an encore here, another point of view but related on statistics and numbers, give it a listen and watch his video on the front page of this blog.  BD

“Numbers Don’t Lie, But People Do”–Radio Interview from Charles Siefe–Journalists Take Note, He Addresses How Marketing And Bogus Statistics Are Sources of Problems That Mislead the Public & Government

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOdDS8rd4-8