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Google Bans Ads for ‘Experimental Medical Treatments’

September 9, 2019

Google plans to crack down on ads for bogus medical treatments, as the company has observed a rise in predatory scams that target desperate patients.

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Google Bans Ads for ‘Experimental Medical Treatments’

Monday, September 9th, 2019

The company announced on Friday a new policy that prohibits promotions “for unproven or experimental medical techniques” and therapies that have “insufficient formal clinical testing to justify widespread clinical use—giving examples such as gene therapy, cellular therapy, and most stem cell therapy.

“Often times, these treatments can lead to dangerous health outcomes and we feel they have no place on our platforms,” the announcement reads.

Google said it is taking action now because it has seen an increase in “bad actors attempting to take advantage of individuals by offering untested, deceptive treatments.”

…continue reading ‘Google Bans Ads for ‘Experimental Medical Treatments”

Thumb image via article – photo: Getty

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Gizmodo

Research and Social Media: Finding Subjects and Keeping Trust

May 24, 2019

As regulatory professionals tasked with protecting research subjects, it’s important to understand the unique risks and benefits of social media use for research

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Research and Social Media: Finding Subjects and Keeping Trust

Friday, May 24th, 2019

Approximately 80% of the US population has a social media account. In 2019 it’s estimated that world-wide there will be around 2.77 billion social media users. Social media can be a powerful research tool for recruiting subjects and for conducting research. As regulatory professionals tasked with protecting research subjects, it’s important to understand the unique risks and benefits of social media use for research.

Luckily, at PRIM&R’s 2018 Advancing Ethical Research Conference (AER18), there was a session devoted solely to the complex issues related to research on social media. Three key issues were discussed at the session, including how IRBs can assess ethical issues related to subject recruitment via social media and ensure subject respect and privacy; use of social media platforms as a source of research data without eroding public trust in research; and how social media use by subjects can impact study integrity.

…continue reading ‘Research and Social Media: Finding Subjects and Keeping Trust’

Image: By Ibrahim.ID – Own work based on:file:Twitter Logo Mini.svgfile:Google plus icon.svgfile:Instagram Shiny Icon.svgfile:Logo Youtube.svg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52245675

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Amp&rsand: The PRIM&R Blog

Solutions to Food & Water Security Challenges Tackled in Seminar

May 23, 2019

“This was an important event because it brought together experts from a variety of areas to look at how climate change is impacting food and water security – and specifically how that will affect the world’s most vulnerable populations,” said organizer Jessica Fanzo

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Solutions to Food & Water Security Challenges Tackled in Seminar

Thursday, May 23rd, 2019

As news reports bring increasingly frequent stories of climate-change-related natural disasters, the Alliance for a Healthier World recently co-hosted a seminar with the SAIS Energy, Resources and Environment and International Development Programs called “Food and Water Security: A Balancing Act in the Era of Climate Change.”

Ben Zatichik, Johns Hopkins Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, gave the opening keynote on water security, explaining that it is a multi-scale, multifaceted problem.

The entire seminar is available on YouTube.

…continue reading ‘Solutions to Food & Water Security Challenges Tackled in Seminar’

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Johns Hopkins Alliance for a Healthier World

The Grim Appeal of Diagnosing Yourself on the Internet

May 22, 2019

Caira Conner writes, “I’ve had three different mysterious chronic illnesses. Each time, the struggle to figure out what was wrong drove me further down the online rabbit hole.”

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The Grim Appeal of Diagnosing Yourself on the Internet

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019

It was easier to search at night when it was quiet. I kept up the ritual the way I kept an eye for dying leaves in my houseplants: focused on the excavation, with a sense of obligation but also a mild, almost pleasurable buzz.

On my computer, I could just drift for a while, letting the paragraphs soothe me as I scrolled. I sat cross-legged on the couch and skimmed through last night’s search history: blocks of text from the National Institutes of Health and MedicineNet and blood tests I’d checked on Lab Tests Online. I copied and pasted medical vocabulary from my hospital’s digital patient portal into my search bar, studying the associated conditions for positive antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) levels, looking up human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles with their corresponding suffixes, letting acronyms blend together into alphabet soup on the screen. Every combination of that day’s symptoms could be Googled. Every amalgamation of keywords led to a new landing page.

As I skimmed, I felt myself relax. I imagined a life in which I could adjust to whatever scenario popped up in front of me — the medications I would take and the new routines I would adopt. I’d make room in my life for whatever condition I had. Finally, I’d be able to calm down and move forward.

…continue reading ‘The Grim Appeal of Diagnosing Yourself on the Internet’

Thumbimage via Medium, Illustration by Jaedoo Lee

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Medium

The Internet Has a Cancer-Faking Problem

May 6, 2019

“Munchausen by internet” is rattling tight-knit online support groups

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The Internet Has a Cancer-Faking Problem

Monday, May 6th, 2019

When Stephany Angelacos was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer in 2016, she immediately turned to the internet for support. Online, there are numerous groups and forums where people dealing with cancer can share their experiences. Angelacos researched her disease and its treatments, and then, inspired by how knowledgeable everyone was, decided to found her own invite-only breast-cancer Facebook group that same year.

Today, this group has grown to 1,700 members. About a third have a metastatic or terminal diagnosis. Others are family members or medical professionals who share advice. The members comfort one another, organize fundraisers, and coordinate visits to those who are alone at the end of their lives. Angelacos, who has now completed active treatment, oversees many of these efforts.

Over the past year, one of the group’s more active and popular members was Marissa Marchand. When she joined in 2017, according to group members, Marchand said she was a terminally ill, grieving single mom. She posted pictures of herself bald from chemotherapy and wearing an IV drip. She quickly became close to many women in the group, and received an outpouring of sympathy, money, and gifts—including expensive wigs—to help defray the costs of medical care and raising her family.

…continue reading ‘The Internet Has a Cancer-Faking Problem’

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The Atlantic

E-Conference: The Latest Evidence on Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture

April 26, 2019

Register now for this free online conference. Scheduled for Monday, June 3 to Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Speakers include our Jessica Fanzo.

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E-Conference: The Latest Evidence on Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture

Friday, April 26th, 2019

Description

Nutrition-sensitive agriculture offers great potential for Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2: Zero Hunger) as it connects agricultural development to improved nutrition outcomes. Examples of nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions are bio-fortification, home vegetable gardens, and small animal rearing (Ruel et al. 2018).

Since many nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions have been applied in recent years, we aim to:

Take stock of what we have learned so far about nutrition-sensitive agriculture, i.e. what works and what does not work, and under what conditions?
Share and discuss this knowledge with practitioners in the field (e.g. farmers, extension workers, NGOs and policy makers)
Turn the evidence base into concrete recommendations for practitioners to implement effective nutrition-sensitive interventions in agricultural development

Register today to join this free online conference. Subscribing allows you to participate in the daily live sessions with our experts and access the online community to discuss insights, exchange project results, ask questions and discuss challenges with colleagues from around the world.

Link for more information and free registration

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Eventbrite

The Fertility Doctor’s Secret

March 19, 2019

Donald Cline must have thought no one would ever know. Then DNA testing came along.

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The Fertility Doctor’s Secret

Tuesday, March 19th, 2019

The first Facebook message arrived when Heather Woock was packing for vacation, in August 2017. It was from a stranger claiming to be her half sibling. She assumed the message was some kind of scam; her parents had never told her she might have siblings. But the message contained one detail that spooked her. The sender mentioned a doctor, Donald Cline. Woock knew that name; her mother had gone to Cline for fertility treatments before she was born. Had this person somehow gotten her mother’s medical history?

Her mom said not to worry. So Woock, who is 33 and lives just outside Indianapolis, flew to the West Coast for her vacation. She got a couple more messages from other supposed half siblings while she was away. Their persistence was strange. But then her phone broke, and she spent the next week and a half outdoors in Seattle and Vancouver, blissfully disconnected.

It was only when she got home and replaced her phone that she saw the barrage of messages from even more half siblings. They had found her on Facebook, she realized, after searching for the username linked to her Ancestry.com account. Her husband had given her a DNA test for Christmas because she was interested in genealogy. Her heritage turned out to be exactly what she had thought—Scottish, with English, Irish, and Scandinavian mixed in—and she never bothered to click on the link that would show whether anyone on the site shared her DNA.

…continue reading ‘The Fertility Doctor’s Secret’

Thumb Image via the Atlantic

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The Atlantic

The Latest Instagram Influencer Frontier? Medical Promotions

February 15, 2019

Big pharma is partnering with influencers to sell new drugs and medical devices

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The Latest Instagram Influencer Frontier? Medical Promotions

Friday, February 15th, 2019

Louise Roe has denim that’s ripped in all the right places, a bikini-ready body year-round, a husband and baby who look like they were picked from a catalog, and 698,000 Instagram followers. She also has the skin condition psoriasis, a chronic autoimmune disease defined by flaky, inflamed red or white patches of skin, and she wants you to know all about it.

Actually, she needs to tell you about her psoriasis on Instagram; otherwise, her paid partnership with Celgene, a biotechnology company that produces the patent-protected psoriasis medication Otezla, would presumably be canceled.

In recent years, businesses have adapted their advertising strategies to the rise in social media use, specifically on Instagram. The app is one of the most popular social networks, surpassed only by its parent company, Facebook, and is projected to have more than 111 million users in 2019 — more than half of whom are between ages 18 and 29. The high level of Instagram user engagement gives companies an opportunity to capitalize on users with thousands of followers, aptly dubbed “influencers,” through paid advertising partnerships.

…continue reading ‘The Latest Instagram Influencer Frontier? Medical Promotions’

Image: By Willedit4food – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75651269

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Vox

Page 1 of 712 3 4 5...»Last »

Google Bans Ads for ‘Experimental Medical Treatments’

Google Bans Ads for ‘Experimental Medical Treatments’

Research and Social Media: Finding Subjects and Keeping Trust

Solutions to Food & Water Security Challenges Tackled in Seminar

Solutions to Food & Water Security Challenges Tackled in Seminar

The Grim Appeal of Diagnosing Yourself on the Internet

The Grim Appeal of Diagnosing Yourself on the Internet

The Internet Has a Cancer-Faking Problem

E-Conference: The Latest Evidence on Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture

E-Conference: The Latest Evidence on Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture

Description

The Fertility Doctor’s Secret

The Fertility Doctor’s Secret

The Latest Instagram Influencer Frontier? Medical Promotions

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