In the News

The Makers of Female Viagra Say the Haters Have It All Wrong

Business Insider – Quotes Lisa Schwartz, professor of medicine, on the drug flibanserin, marketed as a pink pill called Addyi, recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration after two failed attempts. Schwartz points out that despite what appeared to be feminist forces helping the approval along, the drug could be considered anti-feminist. “The strongest advocate for women would want good, safe drugs that will really help them,” she said.

Parrish Medical Center Provides Emmi Patient Education Programs

WFTV – Highlights a randomized controlled study by Geisel and Dartmouth-Hitchcock researchers supporting the value and efficacy of the Emmi programs, a series of online presentations that makes complex medical information easy to understand, and uses plain language, animation and graphics to educate patients about upcoming surgery procedures, chronic conditions, and safety. Researchers found that patients who had viewed an Emmi program about their upcoming procedure had decreased anxiety, lower sedation medication requirements, and shorter procedure times.

Aspen Ideas Festival: How useful is medical screening?

MPR News – In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, H. Gilbert Welch, professor of medicine at Geisel, and Dr. Jessica Herzstein of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, discuss the pros and cons of medical screening tests and early detection of diseases like cancer. Welch and Herzstein question whether early screening is worth the fear, anxiety, false alarms, and possible over-diagnosis, and say there’s not just a dollar cost, but a human cost.

Decades of Data Fail to Resolve Debate on Treating Tiny Breast Lesions

The New York Times – Gilbert Welch, professor of medicine, comments on a recent study, which showed that diagnoses of ductal carcinoma in situ (D.C.I.S.) were treated aggressively with mastectomies or lumpectomies over the course of twenty years, despite the fact that the death rate from breast cancer of these patients, regardless of their choice of treatment, was very low. “I think it is a classic example of what is and will only increasingly become a recurrent problem in medicine,” Welch states. “The questions about what to do — if anything — are fundamentally difficult.”

How Big Pharma Used Feminism To Get The “Female Viagra” Approved

BuzzFeed – Quotes Steven Woloshin, professor of medicine, community and family medicine, and of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, about the drug Addyi, which treats low sex drive in women and recently gained FDA approval. “It’s politicizing what should be a scientific judgment,” says Woloshin. “I think there is a line that gets crossed when you turn the approval process into a political arena.”

A ‘window’ into the female immune system

Contemporary OB/GYN – Quotes Charles Wira, professor of physiology and neurobiology and lead author of a study which found that hormonal changes during a woman’s menstrual cycle open a “window of vulnerability:” a time period during which the female reproductive tract is more susceptible to sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Their study may one day lead to better prevention of STIs and better understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases and cancer progression.