March 28, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A tech company accumulates a ton of user data, hoping to figure out a business model later. That business model never arrives, the company goes under, and the … Read More
March 26, 2025
(New York Times) – After college, as her friends soared, her life became an endless round of psychiatrists, institutionalizations and outpatient programs. An incomplete list of the drugs she has been prescribed: Depakote, Prozac, Ambien, Abilify, Klonopin, Lamictal, Provigil, Lithium. … Read More
March 26, 2025
(New York Times) – The agency OK’d an artificial vessel to restore blood flow in patients, even though its own scientists flagged questionable study results and potentially fatal ruptures of the product. When the biotech company Humacyte designed a study … Read More
March 26, 2025
(BBC) – Many fertility patients in the UK are being offered unnecessary add-on treatments that have little or no proof of improving the likelihood of pregnancy, a report suggests.Add-ons are optional, non-essential treatments some private clinics offer in addition to … Read More
March 26, 2025
Medico-Legal Journal (vol. 93, no. 1, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
March 25, 2025
(Axios) – The demise of 23andMe illustrates the vulnerable state of Americans’ health data, as med tech companies vacuum up more personal information with little regulatory oversight. Why it matters: Fitness trackers, wellness apps, genetic tests and other direct-to-consumer tools … Read More
March 24, 2025
(The Atlantic) – Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI. Search through them here. When employees at Meta started developing their flagship AI model, Llama 3, they faced a simple ethical question. The program would need to be … Read More
March 24, 2025
(NPR) – Fewer than half of the claims in the top videos accurately match the scientific criteria that form an ADHD diagnosis. Many oversimplified or overstated the symptoms of ADHD and weren’t backed up by reliable sources. Many content creators … Read More
March 21, 2025
(ProPublica) – The Montana hospital that fired Dr. Thomas C. Weiner turned over thousands of pages of documents, but members of the board say they were unaware of them. Since at least April 2021, the Montana medical licensing board has … Read More
March 21, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – The goal of an autopsy is to discover the cause of a person’s death. Autopsy reports, especially those resulting from detailed investigations, often reveal health conditions—conditions that might have been kept private while the person was … Read More
March 19, 2025
(Aeon) – Millions are turning to an unregulated herbal extract to curb their opioid addiction. But do the risks outweigh the benefits? Harm reduction is a contested and evolving concept that was first used in the 1980s as a shorthand … Read More
March 18, 2025
(KFF Health News) – Kratom, which originates from the leaves of a tree native to Southeast Asia, is also touted for helping relieve pain and opioid withdrawal symptoms. But it can have wide-ranging mental and bodily effects, according to the … Read More
March 18, 2025
(Wired) – Since Amazon announced plans for a generative AI version of Alexa, we were concerned about user privacy. With Alexa+ rolling out to Amazon Echo devices in the coming weeks, we’re getting a clearer view of the privacy concessions … Read More
March 18, 2025
(NBC News) – State legislators want greater oversight of the wellness industry after 5-year-old Thomas Cooper was killed in a hyperbaric chamber fire in January. Thomas Cooper was killed Jan. 31 when a fire broke out in a hyperbaric chamber … Read More
March 17, 2025
(New York Times) – Ms. Delano is not a doctor; her main qualification, she likes to say, is having been “a professional psychiatric patient between the ages of 13 and 27.” During those years, when she attended Harvard and was … Read More
March 17, 2025
(New York Times) – THE TELEPHONE CALL that interrupted Brendan’s death was about extending lives, though not his. Just as he had planned. The caller was from LiveOnNY, the nonprofit organization federally designated to coordinate organ donations in the New … Read More
March 14, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Psychiatrists and primary-care doctors regularly prescribe the drugs for everything from mild anxiety to insomnia, making benzodiazepines some of the most commonly prescribed psychiatric medications in America. The pills’ omnipresence has left a mark on pop … Read More
March 13, 2025
(Axios) – As teen tobacco use experiences historic declines, new evidence suggests vaping is giving kids the same level of nicotine exposure. Why it matters: The findings could undercut arguments that vaping and e-cigarettes are less harmful than traditional cigarettes … Read More
March 13, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Hims and other telehealth firms make finasteride easy to get and don’t have to disclose side effects in ads Finasteride, the generic name for Propecia, is a popular hair-loss treatment that has been on the market … Read More
March 12, 2025
(New York Times) – Prescription drugs like lorazepam — used to treat anxiety, panic attacks and sleep disorders — play a role in popular TV shows like “The White Lotus” and “The Pitt.” This isn’t a case of Hollywood taking … Read More
March 12, 2025
(KFF Health News) – About 93 million CT scans are performed every year in the United States, according to IMV, a medical market research company that tracks imaging. More than half of those scans are for people 60 and older. … Read More
March 10, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – The “placebo effect” is a phenomenon that occurs when a person’s physical or mental health improves after taking what is essentially a sham treatment with no clear therapeutic benefits. “The placebo effect is not magic, … Read More
March 10, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Despite a child’s death, residents say personal choice—not public-health policy—should guide their decisions Gaines County exemplifies pockets of America where antivaccine sentiment has surged, fueled by deepening distrust in the U.S. government after the pandemic. With … Read More
March 6, 2025
(Associated Press) – Utah on Wednesday became the first state to pass legislation requiring app stores to verify users’ ages and get parental consent for minors to download apps to their devices. The bill headed to the desk of Gov. … Read More
March 6, 2025
(New York Times) – The state’s insurance regulator has demanded detailed information about patients and their medications, raising privacy concerns. Florida’s insurance regulator has demanded an unusually intrusive trove of data on millions of prescription drugs filled in the state … Read More
