Contents
President's Message
Milestones
Meeting announcements
Editorial Impressions
Visitors Tour the New Wing
August Meeting at JSUMC
What Our Vice President Does
Heart News and Notes
Martin Brilliant
an old printing press
Public domain illustration from www.fromoldbooks.org
WHOSIS, the World Health Organization Statistical Information System, lists a wide range of statistics for 193 countries around the world. In broad outcome measures like life expectancy and infant mortality, the United States ranks far above most of the world’s countries but falls short of Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Canada and every Western European country listed.

Reference: http:// www.who.int/whosis/
The Jersey Heartbeat - It's Great to be Alive and to Help Others
The Mended Hearts, Inc.
Hearts of Jersey Chapter #179
September 2009

Editorial Impressions

Ghostwriting is writing something anonymously so someone else can pretend to have written it. When a drug company pays ghostwriters to plant articles in peer-reviewed journals, physicians might be persuaded that its products are safer or more effective than they really are.

An August 5 article in The New York Times reported that Wyeth Pharmaceuticals paid ghostwriters to promote its hormone therapy products between 1998 and 2005. An August 19 article reported similar activity by SmithKlineGlaxo between 2000 and 2002 to promote its antidepressant Paxil. Another August 19 article noted concern in Congress about medical ghostwriting.

When I read that the articles in the Wyeth case were typically review articles I realized how easily they might be slanted. Review articles, or metastudies, analyze combined data from other studies to derive stronger statistical results than could be obtained from each alone. All it takes to bias the results is to tailor the inclusion criteria so as to exclude the unfavorable ones. The Cochrane Reviews, which I described last month, are metastudies.

Two studies published in JAMA surveyed authors of articles to look for ghostwriting. One found evidence of ghostwriting (mostly by Cochrane team editors) in 9 percent of Cochrane reviews in early 1999. The other, for comparison, found evidence of ghostwriting in 11 percent of six peer-reviewed journals in 1996.

I promise to be more vigilant in reporting study results in the “Heart News and Notes” pages of this newsletter.

Bayshore Community Hospital was established in Holmdel while I lived here. It’s my first choice for emergency and outpatient care even though it’s not in the Meridian Health System. Two months ago Bayshore agreed to join Meridian Health, a month after a similar agreement with Southern Ocean County Health System (based in Manahawkin). Both mergers are expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Healthcare reform is a hot topic these days. Critics point to unequal access, high costs and unsatisfactory results and are eager to move forward. Conservatives wary of change, and insurers and other companies that profit from the current system, oppose reform. Both sides use statistics selectively.

But it’s interesting to note that Israel, in spite of rocket attacks and suicide bombs, enjoys a longer life expectancy than the United States.


the end