Academic Medicine – What’s To Become of the Triple Mission Under Universal Health Care?

Hopkins Alumni Careers 1980-2012. Mike Magee A New York Times banner headline in 2016 read, “Harnessing the U.S. Taxpayer to Fight Cancer and Make Profits”. It documented the unusual partnership between Kite Pharma, a cancer immunotherapy start-up run by serial entrepreneur, Arie Nelldegrun, and the U.S. government. The underlying immunotherapy research was the […]

NEJM Critique of US Medical Research – 1966 vs. 2016. A Deeply Conflicted System.

Henry K. Beecher,MGH Mike Magee “Assessing the Gold Standard – Lessons from the History of RCTs” , in last week’s NEJM, provided useful historical perspective, but was intentional selective and treaded lightly on the darker side of America’s medical-industrial complex, and its conflicted role in human medical experimentation. The most significant determinant that defined the direction of […]

America’s Scientific Bipolarism – “Woe Is Me.” vs. “Yes We Can!”

SOURCE: HHMI NEWS Videos Mike Magee As ISIS and Ebola “take over the world” (or at least the hearts, minds, and fears of the planet’s human inhabitants), it is easy to be drawn into a downward mental spiral. This morning’s news features an MSF doctor, just back from treating Ebola patients in Guinea, travelling on […]

Cholesterol: Never Having To Say You’re Sorry – Authors, Reviewers and RWI’s.

Mike Magee Tough week for the Cholesterol Franchise. When the major heart associations (American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology) put out new guidelines in the journal Circulation(1), and instantaneously the Cleveland Clinic’s Steven Nissen and Brigham and Women’s Peter Libby trash the recommendations, and Harvard’s Paul M. Ridker and Nancy Cook let […]

Should Bird Flu Research Be Suppressed?

Mike Magee Several years ago, Bird Flu (avian flu, H5N1), was the hottest topic in science reporting. We covered it closely from 2005 to 2009.(1) There were three major threads to our reporting: 1) H5N1 is a deadly virus. Since discovered in 1997, it has killed some 600 people. 2) H5N1 is not as dangerous […]

What If “Alcoholism” Has Nothing To Do With Alcohol?

Mike Magee My father’s closest friend was “Uncle Phil”. They attended Fordham University together, partied together, graduated together. Both were smart, accomplished, Catholic, enjoyed alcohol and were married with large families. Their lives diverged somewhere in the late 50’s or early 60’s when alcohol took over Uncle Phil’s life, his job, his family and his […]