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- Published on: 11 May 2019
- Published on: 24 April 2019
- Published on: 12 April 2019
- Published on: 11 May 2019Game keepers, poachers, thin ice and disease definition
The fine paper by Moynihan et al moves the goal posts in terms of how changes in disease definitions are made.1 They identify many of the problems involved, including financial conflicts of interest. Their proposal fails to address two issues. First, only the most problematic vested interests are dealt with and second, they fail to acknowledge and address the necessarily flawed evidence base they must work out of.
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The authors find that the present financial arrangements in industry almost inevitably introduce unacceptable biases to its advocacy positions. Interests, so compromised, must be excluded from panels determining disease definitions. On the other hand, Moynihan et al. allow for participation by medical specialists deeply in the related fields. Such groups can have compelling financial and/or professional interests, particularly where private practice or turf battles prevail. This situation, though noted in passing, is inadequately challenged, and it is at least arguable, that the professions are too influential. The biases of many professional groups identified (and others not mentioned) can be just as problematic as those of the industry.
The paper favours an evidential approach without noting the endemic medical evidence crisis of the last decade.2 This must be part of any serious discourse in which the wider public is, inevitably, included. Among the problems, in no particular order are poor choice of question; biases and poor quality in study desig...Conflict of Interest:
None declared. - Published on: 24 April 2019Yes, bias is pervasive . .
I find this discussion unbalanced. Yes, bias is pervasive, and - unfortunately - primary care organizations are not exempt. Like, "the public" can be mislead - about chlorinated water and measles vaccination. But most importantly, put simply, expanding disease definitions usually means more patients to treat, and more cost to account for - this can be a negative incentive in health systems. I have witnessed on several occasions - including WHO BP treatment panels - a strong, explicit bias by primary care organizations to resist the evidence of benefit to treatment at lower levels of BP because it would increase patient loads. Historically the call to "not over-treat" goes back to the '60's, when many argued that "high BP was just like a fever - a symptom not a cause", and every step of progress has been to adopt lower targets. In my view, like it or not, pills are a new era in public health - much like vaccination. And, yes, wide use of safe, effective pills is being resisted for many of the same reasons. But progress cannot be denied, BP goals have declined from "never treat" to SBP of 120, with 80-90% decline in CVD - esp stroke. The US may have the bias toward more treatment (some doctors get patient for more visits . . ) but stroke rates are much lower than in Europe, and many dozens of US health systems have achieved the goal of 80% of treated patients with BP < 140, with excellent results. It shoul...
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None declared. - Published on: 12 April 2019Expanding the scope – pursuing a fully integrated discourse on health
Expanding the scope – pursuing a fully integrated discourse on health
Thank you for starting a long overdue discussion about the largely “insidious vested interest driven” activity of disease redefinition. Clearly this is causing high risks to the health and well-being of people and communities [1]. However, I think, there is a need to expand the emerging discourse on three front right at the beginning, especially the complex adaptive epistemology of health, a clear elaboration of the limitation of statistics as a means to “prove the truth”, and more fundamentally, the consideration of “biological plausibility”, i.e. the need to focus on integrated network physiology, in considering what are healthy “normal” indicators across the lifespan.
(1) The paper tangentially alludes to the epistemic issues of defining health, illness, dis-ease and disease. Putting it in this way infers as a presupposition that health, illness, dis-ease and disease are distinctively “different things” – essentially a reflection of the reductionist tradition of thought of the past 350 yrs. In the first instance health in all it’s forms is subjective in nature [2], and must be distinguished from the objective features of pathology we use to define disease. As most generalist health professionals know at the end of a consultation patients fall into one of four principle clusters:
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• Subjectively healthy with no identifiable pathology
• Subjectively health with well-defined path...Conflict of Interest:
None declared.