Overdosed America (53 page)

178
“supply-sensitive care”:
J. E. Wennberg, E. S. Fisher, and J. S. Skinner, “Geography and the Debate over Medicare Reform,”
Health Affairs—Web Exclusive.
February 13, 2002.

179
cardiologists who perform cardiac catheterization:
R. A. Lange, “Use and Overuse of Angiography and Revascularization for Acute Coronary Syndromes.”
New England Medical Journal
338:1838–1839, 1998.

179
spins completely out of control in for-profit hospitals:
In 2003, Tenet Health Care Corporation agreed to pay a record $54 million to settle charges by the Department of Justice that cardiologists and cardiac surgeons at its Redding, California, hospital had performed hundreds of unnecessary cardiac procedures. Hospital administrators were being pushed to beat projections, and a cardiologist and cardiac surgeon were all too willing to perform the unnecessary procedures. According to the settlement “fact sheet” Tenet agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Justice a record $54 million for the performance “of alleged unnecessary cardiac procedures.” Redding Medical Center/Tenet Settlement Fact Sheet. Viewed at http://www.heartlaw.info/heartlaw/news/RmcFactSheetMah.pdf. Accessed September 22, 2003.

180
more than twice as much:
Elliott S. Fisher, “Medical Care—Is More Always Better?”
New England Journal of Medicine
349:1665–1667, 2003.

180
was 60 percent more in the highest-spending regions:
E. S. Fisher, D. E. Wennberg, T. Stukel, et al., “The Implications of Regional Variations in Medicare.
Part 1
: The Content, Quality, and Accessibility of Care,”
Annals of Internal Medicine
273–287.

181
the most important medical innovation:
V. R. Fuchs and H. C. Sox Jr., “Physicians’ Views of the Relative Importance of Thirty Medical Innovations,”
Health Affairs
20(3):30–42, 2001.

181
number of MRI scanners in the United States:
L. Baker, H. Birnbaum, J. Geppert, et al., “The Relationship Between Technology Availability and Health Care Spending,”
Health Affairs
Web Exclusive, November 5, 2003.

181
patients in Washington state:
D. R. Flum, A. Morris, T. Kooepsell, et al., “Has Misdiagnosis of Appendicitis Decreased Over Time? A Population-Based Analysis,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
286:1748–1753, 2001.

182
80 percent of people older than 50:
M. C. Jensen, M. N. Brant-Zawadzki, N. Obuchowski, et al., “Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Lumbar Spine in People Without Back Pain,”
New England Medical Journal
331:69–73, 1994.

183
71 percent say they would rather die at home than in a hospital:
“Means to a Better End: A Report on Dying in America Today,”
Last Acts,
November 2002, p.92. Viewed at www.lastacts.org. Accessed November 12, 2003.

183
people’s end-of-life wishes are usually ignored:
R. S. Pritchard, E. S. Fisher, J. M. Teno, et al., “Influence of Patient Preferences and Local Health System Characteristics on the Place of Death,”
Journal of The American Geriatrics Society
46: 1242–1250, 1998.

184
expenditures of $1.8 trillion:
S. Heffler, S. Smith, S. Keehan, et al., “Health Spending Projections Through 2013.”
Health Affairs
Web Exclusive, February 11, 2004.

184
Markets respond more rapidly:
Economic Report of the President, Transmitted to the Congress 2002, p. 148.

184
combination of comprehensive social support:
J. D. Lants, “Hooked on Neonatology: A Pediatrician Wonders About NICU’s Hidden Cost of Success,”
Health Affairs
20(5):233–240, 2001.

191
one-fifteenth the amount of friction:
“Osteoarthritis,”
Harrison’s On-line,
chapter 321. Accessed August 4, 2002.

191
release enzymes that destroy the fibers:
Ibid.

191
American College of Rheumatology’s:
American College of Rheumatology Subcommittee on Osteoarthritis Guidelines, “Recommendations for the Medical Management of Osteoarthritis of the Hip and Knee,”
Arthritis and Rheumatism
43:1905–1915, 2000.

194
Louis Pasteur accepted a position:
René Dubos,
Pasteur and Modern Science.
Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1960, p. 40.

194
bacteria, which appeared rod-shaped:
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895),
Zephyrus.
Viewed at http://www.zephyrus.co.uk/louispasteur.html. Accessed December 16, 2003.

194
devastating the silkworm industry:
Dubos, op. cit., p. 101.

194
working on a rabies vaccine:
Ibid, pp. 122–123.

195
“acute and harrowing anxiety”:
“Historical Perspectives: A Centennial Celebration: Pasteur and the Modern Era of Immunization,”
MMWR Weekly
34:389–390, 1985.

195
Pasteur went on to treat 2490 people:
Dubos, op. cit., 122–123.

195
Robert Koch:
Ibid, p. 106.

195
“magic bullet”:
Paul Starr,
The Social Transformation of Medicine,
New York: Basic Books, 1982, p. 135.

195
Johns Hopkins University:
Ibid., p. 115.

196
American Medical Association in 1906:
Ibid., p. 118.

196
Flexner Report:
Ibid., pp 119–122.

197
Osler wrote a letter:
Harvey Cushing,
The Life of Sir William Osler,
vol. 2, London: Oxford University Press, 1925, pp. 292–293.

197
Flexner himself eventually became disappointed:
Starr, op. cit., p. 123.

199
one out of every 200 patients:
L. A. Green, B. P. Yawn, D. Lanier, et al., “The Ecology of Medical Care Revisited,”
New England Journal of Medicine
344:2021–2025, 2001.

200
The challenges of medicine:
Ken Wilber,
The Marriage of Sense and Soul,
New York: Random House, 1998, p. 56.

200
Dr. Arthur Kleinman of Harvard:
Arthur Kleinman,
Writing at the Margin: Discourse Between Anthropology and Medicine,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 243–244.

201
high-risk men from Oslo, Norway:
I. Hjermann, Velve K. Byre, I. Holme, and P. Leren, “Effect of Diet and Smoking Intervention on the Incidence of Coronary Heart Disease, Report from the Oslo Study Group of a Randomised Trial in Healthy Men (Abstract),”
The Lancet
2(8259):1303–1310, 1981.

201
The Lyon Diet Heart Study:
F. M. Sacks and Katan Martijn, “Randomized Clinical Trials on the Effects of Dietary Fat and Carbohydrate on Plasma Lipoproteins and Cardiovascular Disease,”
American Journal of Medicine
113(9/supp. 2):13–24, 2002.

202
twice the reduction achieved by statins:
In the LIPID study, post–heart attack patients were randomized to receive a statin or placebo. After 6.1 years, 11 percent of the treatment group had died compared with 14.1 percent of the control group, for a relative risk reduction of 22 percent. See Long-Term Intervention with Pravastatin in Ischemic Disease (LIPID) Study Group, op. cit.

202
Nurses Health Study:
M. J. Stampfer, F. B. Hu, J. E. Manson, et al., “Primary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease in Women through Diet and Lifestyle,”
New England Journal of Medicine
343:16–22, 2000.

202
unspoken professional values, beliefs, and techniques:
Kuhn used the phrase “tacit knowledge” to describe the unspoken presuppositions that are shared by scientists that define what they do. Michael Polyani developed the idea: “When we accept a certain set of presuppositions and use them as our interpretative framework, we may be said to dwell in them as we do in our own body.. . . As they are themselves our ultimate framework, they are essentially inarticulable.” Quoted in Jan Golinski,
Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science,
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 17.

203
shared paradigm defines the range:
Thomas Kuhn,
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962, pp. 64–65.

203
criteria that justify belief:
Susan Haack,
Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology,
Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993, p. 206.

204
“The Need for a New Medical Model:
G. L. Engel, “The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine,”
Science
196:129–136, 1977.

204
“half of all deaths:
A. H. Mokdad, J. S. Marks, D. F. Stroup, and J. L. Gerberding, “Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
291:1238–1245, 2004.

204
6 percent of deaths:
J. M. McGinnis, P Williams-Russo, and J. R. Knickman, “The Case for More Active Policy Attention to Health Promotion,”
Health Affairs
21:78-93, 2002.

204
Institute of Medicine:
“The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century,”
Institute of Medicine,
November 2002.

205
almost all (95 percent) of our health care spending:
McGinnis, op. cit.

205
chronic anxiety, and anger:
L. D. Kubzansky and I. Kawachi, “Going to the Heart of the Matter: Do Negative Emotions Cause Coronary Heart Disease?”
Journal of Psychomatic Research
48:323–337, 2000.

205
appropriate counseling:
E. A. McGlynn, S. M. Asch, J. Adams, et al., “The Quality of Health Care Delivered to Adults in the United States,”
New England Journal of Medicine
348:2635–2645, 2003.

206
individuals are made up of multiple levels:
Wilber, op. cit., pp. 67–68.

206
Richard Lewontin:
Richard Lewontin,
The Triple Helix,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 100.

207
“clinical gaze”:
Byron J. Good,
Medicine, Rationality, and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 180.

207 “
This means of interpreting reality:
Ibid., p. 76.

207
subjective experience and consciousness:
John R. Searle,
Mind, Language, and Society: Philosophy in the Real World,
New York: Basic Books, 1998, p. 57.

208
value different metaphysical perspectives equally:
Arthur Kleinman,
Writing at the Margin: Discourse Between Anthropology and Medicine,
Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 243–244.

208
mysterious and dynamic relationship:
Colin McGinn,
The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World,
New York: Basic Books, 1999, p. 167.

208
keeps primary care permanently at the bottom:
S. D. Block, N. Clark-Chiarelli, A. S. Peters, and J. D. Singer, “Academia’s Chilly Climate for Primary Care,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
276:677–682, 1996.

208
Sir William Osler:
Quoted in René Dubos.
Mirage of Health: Utopias, Progress, and Biological Change,
New York: Harper & Row, 1959, p. 143.

210
so weak that a sudden strain, bump, or fall:
National Osteoporosis Foundation. Viewed at http://www.nof.org/osteoporosis/stats.htm. Accessed October 24, 2002 and April 22, 2004.

210
Twenty percent of all women over the age of 50:
E. Siris, P. Miller, E. Barrett-Connor, et al., “Design of NORA, the National Osteoporosis Risk Assessment Program: A Longitudinal U.S. Registry of Postemenopausal Women,”
Osteoporosis International.
Supp. 1:S62–S69, 1998.

211
In women, this balance changes:
Robert Lindsay and Felicia Cosman, chapter 342: Osteoporosis. Viewed at www.harrisonsonline.com October 23, 2002.

211
educational campaign initiated in 1982:
C. J. Green, K. Bassett, V. Foerster, and A. Kazanjian, “Bone Mineral Testing: Does the Evidence Support Its Selective Use in Well Women?” Center for Health Services and Policy Research, British Columbia Office of Health Technology Assessment, December 1997.

211
bone mineral density (BMD):
“Standard deviation” is a statistical measure: 2.5 standard deviations is equivalent to a bone density lower than all but 1 or 2 out of 100 women in their late twenties.

212
funded by three drug companies:
Green, op. cit.

213
the WHO study group recommended:
J. A. Kanis, “Assessment of Fracture Risk and Its Application to Screening for Postmenopausal Osteoporosis: Synopsis of a WHO Report,” WHO Study Group,
Osteoporosis International
(6):368–381, 1994.

213
never been a randomized controlled study:
C. Green, A. Kazanjian, and D. Herlmer, “Informing, Advising, or Persuading? An Assessment of Bone Mineral Density Testing Information from Consumer Health Web Sites,”
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care
20:1–11, 2004.