NYT Op Ed: Gingrich and Evidence-Biased Medicine

[Mort Zuckerman]

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Subject: NYT Op Ed: Gingrich and Evidence-Biased Medicine

Date: Oct 24, 2008 4:31 AM

(NYT Op-Ed, below)
---------------------

Apparently Gingrich et al have not been reading the news.
The "evidence" that Lyme is a non disease and requires no
treatment is scientific FRAUD written on behalf of the
insurance companies:
http://www.actionlyme.org/MKLEMPNER.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/CRYMEDISEASE_CHP3_B.htm

And psychiatry has turned out to be a complete hoax
written by BigPharma:
http://www.actionlyme.org/081003_PSYCHIA_FRAUD_NYT.htm

And the "Institute of Medicine" is a joke, as is the AHRQ.gov

(Gingrich is an advisor to AHRQ.gov, which includes mostly
execs from the Bigs, but also, people trained by the Bigs-
masters in public health and the like; Kool-Aid Drinkers
and not a one of them, real lab scientists. That is,
AHRQ.gov is not a real dot gov.)

So, Hmmm, Where do we start when we have to throw out
nearly all the data?

Idiots really need to stay out of Medicine.
Which includes nearly all of the AMA- who had to
admit indirectly that they were clueless when it comes
to vector borne diseases:
-------
http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/sep07/070901n.asp
"(One health) is a holistic systems approach to understanding health
across
all species," explained Dr. Lonnie J. King, director of the CDC's
National
Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases and chair of
the AVMA One
Health Initiative Task Force.

"It's a recognition that human and animal health are inextricably
linked,
and one health is about how to promote, improve, and defend the health
and well-being
of all species, with the cooperation of physicians and veterinarians,"
Dr.
King said.
-------

TRANSLATION: "We, the AMA, are idiots when it comes to
vector borne diseases- thanks to Yale and their LYMErix
crymes. In a major way, Yale's LYMErix FRAUD negatively
affected research in cancer and HIV as well as MS and ALS:
http://www.actionlyme.org/PAM3CYS_IMMUNE_SUPPRESSION.htm
because they deliberately did not report adverse events
to LYMErix and lied to the FDA about its safety and
efficacy:
http://www.actionlyme.org/SCHOEN_INSTRUCTING_DOCS_TO_BLOWOFF_LYMERIX_VACCINEES.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/DICKSON_FDA_SUBMISSION_FULL.htm

Yale knew all along LYMErix did demonstrate it was effectice
against Lyme because the Western Blots were unreadable.
That's why Schoen worked with Persing to develop the
"No Osp-A-B RICO Method."
http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6045804.PN.&OS=PN/6045804&RS=PN/6045804


Idiots need to stay out of science. It is not for these
"ya-feel-me" kinda psychiatric fags and it's not for
"do-nothing" psychopaths, like Crazy eddie McSweegan who
never worked in a lab:
http://www.actionlyme.org/GOLDWATER_LETTER.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/McSweegan.htm
It's not for the CDC to protect their criminal employees,
like Allen Steere and Alan Barbour:
http://www.actionlyme.org/CDCS_PARTICIPATION_IN_LYME_CRIMES.htm
and it's not for the FDA to say: "Please go to our disclaimer
page, where we disclaim our obligation to look at the data
BigPharma sends us:"
http://www.actionlyme.org/BET_ON_THE_WITCHDOCTOR.htm


Think about it. The AMA had to STOP what they were doing
and say to the Veterinarians, "Um, we have to concede we're
clueless on vector borne diseases," and CDC's Julie Gerberding
said, "We have to retrain all of US Medicine"- all as a result
of Yale's lies about "Lyme disease" to sell their bogus
vaccine and monopolize blood, testing, microbial DNA and
human genetic data related to susceptibilities of disease in
order to hoard that information for their own per$onal purpo$e$:
http://www.actionlyme.org/LYME_CORRUPTICUT.htm

There never was a bigger calamity than what the ALDF/IDSA
cabal did with "Lyme disease." Had they told the truth,
we might be ten years ahead of where we are on cancer
and HIV vaccine research, too.


Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.relapsingfever.org
http://www.actionlyme.org

==========================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/opinion/24beane.html?pagewanted=print
The New York Times

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October 24, 2008
Op-Ed Contributors
How to Take American Health Care From Worst to First
By BILLY BEANE, NEWT GINGRICH and JOHN KERRY

IN the past decade, baseball has experienced a data-driven information
revolution.
Numbers-crunchers now routinely use statistics to put better teams on
the field
for less money. Our overpriced, underperforming health care system
needs a similar
revolution.

Data-driven baseball has produced surprising results. Michael Lewis
writes in “Moneyball”
that the Oakland A’s have won games and division titles at one-sixth
the cost of
the most profligate teams. This season, the New York Yankees, Detroit
Tigers and
New York Mets — the three teams with the highest payrolls, a combined
$486 million
— are watching the playoffs on television, while the Tampa Bay Rays, a
franchise
that uses a data-driven approach and has the second-lowest payroll in
baseball at
$44 million, are in the World Series (a sad reality for one of us).

Remarkably, a doctor today can get more data on the starting third
baseman on his
fantasy baseball team than on the effectiveness of life-and-death
medical procedures.
Studies have shown that most health care is not based on clinical
studies of what
works best and what does not — be it a test, treatment, drug or
technology. Instead,
most care is based on informed opinion, personal observation or
tradition.

It is no surprise then that the United States spends more than twice
as much per
capita on health care compared to almost every other country in the
world — and
with worse health quality than most industrialized nations. Health
premiums for
a family of four have nearly doubled since 2001. Starbucks pays more
for health
care than it does for coffee. Nearly 100,000 Americans are killed
every year by
preventable medical errors. We can do better if doctors have better
access to concise,
evidence-based medical information.

Look at what’s happened in baseball. For decades, executives, managers
and scouts
built their teams and managed games based on their personal
experiences and a handful
of dubious statistics. This romantic approach has been replaced with a
statistics-based
creed called sabermetrics.

These are not the stats we studied as children on the backs of
baseball cards. Sabermetrics
relies on obscure statistics like WHIP (walks and hits per inning
pitched), VORP
(value over replacement player) or runs created — a number derived
from the formula
[(hits + walks) x total bases]/(at bats + walks). Franchises have used
this data
to answer some of the key questions in baseball: When is an attempted
steal worth
the risk? Whom should we draft, and in what order? Should we re-sign
an aging star
player and run the risk of paying for past performance rather than
future results?

Similarly, a health care system that is driven by robust comparative
clinical evidence
will save lives and money. One success story is Cochrane
Collaboration, a nonprofit
group that evaluates medical research. Cochrane performs systematic,
evidence-based
reviews of medical literature. In 1992, a Cochrane review found that
many women
at risk of premature delivery were not getting corticosteroids, which
improve the
lung function of premature babies.

Based on this evidence, the use of corticosteroids tripled. The
result? A nearly
10 percentage point drop in the deaths of low-birth-weight babies and
millions of
dollars in savings by avoiding the costs of treating complications.

Another example is Intermountain Healthcare, a nonprofit health-care
system in Utah,
where 80 percent of the care is based on evidence. Treatment data is
collected by
electronic medical records. The data is analyzed by researchers, and
the best practices
are then incorporated into the clinical process, resulting in far
better quality
care at a cost that is one-third less than the national average.
(Disclosure: Intermountain
Healthcare is a member of Mr. Gingrich’s organization.)

Evidence-based health care would not strip doctors of their decision-
making authority
nor replace their expertise. Instead, data and evidence should
complement a lifetime
of experience, so that doctors can deliver the best quality care at
the lowest possible
cost.

Working closely with doctors, the federal government and the private
sector should
create a new institute for evidence-based medicine. This institute
would conduct
new studies and systematically review the existing medical literature
to help inform
our nation’s over-stretched medical providers. The government should
also increase
Medicare reimbursements and some liability protections for doctors who
follow the
recommended clinical best practices.

America’s health care system behaves like a hidebound, tradition-based
ball club
that chases after aging sluggers and plays by the old rules: we pay
too much and
get too little in return. To deliver better health care, we should
learn from the
successful teams that have adopted baseball’s new evidence-based
methods. The best
way to start improving quality and lowering costs is to study the
stats.

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