The ESC today announced that Jeroen Bax, a Dutch cardiologist, will serve as the group’s President Elect for the next two years before becoming President starting in 2016. Bax is a professor of cardiology at Leiden University Medical Center. Bax is also known for his very close collaboration with Don Poldermans, the disgraced Dutch researcher…
Newly Elected European Society Of Cardiology President Co-Authored Hundreds Of Papers With Don Poldermans
September 1, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Why Guidelines Should Be Waged Like War
August 22, 2014 by 1 Comment
(Updated) Here’s a modest proposal: we need fewer and shorter guidelines. In fact, I’d like to propose that guidelines, like war, should be waged only when there is absolute consensus and overwhelming evidence. Anyone interested in the subject is aware that guidelines are in a complete mess. Just in the past two weeks I’ve written about…
An Expert’s Perspective: Why Salt Is Not Like Tobacco And Why Guidelines Are Tricky
August 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Updated August 15– At the center of this week’s renewed debate on salt was Salim Yusuf, the long influential and occasionally controversial cardiology researcher and clinical trialist based at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. I spoke with Yusuf before the publication of the New England Journal of Medicine papers, which include his own two papers from the PURE study….
Dutch Investigation Finds Serious Flaws In Influential New England Journal Of Medicine Study
July 30, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Erasmus Medical Center says it has wrapped up its investigation of Don Poldermans, the disgraced cardiology researcher who was fired for research misconduct. The full extent of the misconduct has never been known, and from an examination of the Erasmus report it appears likely that it never will be known. One major finding– though downplayed in…
The Walking Dead: Renal Denervation In Europe Just Can’t Be Stopped
May 21, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Earlier this year the only large, well-designed trial of renal denervation– the once highly-promising catheter-based technology that was widely expected to “cure” difficult cases of resistant hypertension– failed spectacularly. Many hypertension experts believe that ultimately the technique will prove to be beneficial, but after the failure of Simplicity HTN-3 it is clear that there’s a great deal…
Stem Cell Therapy To Fix The Heart: A House Of Cards About To Fall?
April 28, 2014 by 1 Comment
For more than a decade cardiac stem cell therapy has attracted an enormous amount of attention, promise, and research dollars. Now an original and important new study published in BMJ finds that many of the most promising results in the field are illusory and that the potential benefits of stem cells to treat heart disease are probably far…
What Role Should Coca-Cola Play In Obesity Research?
April 27, 2014 by 1 Comment
What role should Coca-Cola and other food and beverage companies play in funding and communicating research about nutrition and obesity? The question is prompted by a recent article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The “state-of-the-art” paper reviews the relationship of obesity and cardiovascular disease and presents the case that a decline in physical activity is the primary cause…
The Uncertain Future Of A Once Highly Promising Device For Lowering Blood Pressure
April 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Following the spectacular crash and burn of the Symplicity HTN-3 trial at the American College of Cardiology two weeks ago, the future of renal denervation (RDN)– the once highly promising catheter technology that many thought would cure resistant hypertension– appears in doubt. Although the device has not been approved in the US– and will not be approved without…
A New Novartis Heart Failure Drug Might Be A Blockbuster
April 1, 2014 by Leave a Comment
I try to avoid using words like “blockbuster” and “breakthrough” when writing about new drugs and treatments. I’ve been disappointed too many times. But, though they’ve been in short supply lately in cardiovascular medicine, sometimes there really are breakthroughs and blockbusters. In my career writing about cardiovascular medicine I’ve seen the introduction of the ACE…
Steve Jobs Rejected The First Medical App In 1977
February 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment
There’s been a lot of speculation that future Apple products will include health-related apps and biometric sensors. Here’s the story of what might have been the first Apple medical app, except for the fact that in 1977 Steve Jobs had absolutely no interest in going in that direction. George Diamond is now retired after a long and very distinguished career as a cardiologist…
Leading European Cardiologist Accused Of Plagiarism
February 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Thomas Lüscher, the editor of the European Heart Journal and one of the most prominent cardiologists in Europe, has been accused of plagiarism. An irony in the case is that Lüscher has taken a strong public position against scientific misconduct of all sorts, including plagiarism. … Click here to read the full post on Forbes. …
This Blog Is ‘Not Suitable For Dissemination Through The Internet’
February 9, 2014 by 1 Comment
The editors of the prestigious European Heart Journal have decided that this blog, or at least one recent post, “is “not suitable for dissemination through the internet.” I beg to differ. In an EHJ editorial, Is the panic about beta-blockers in perioperative care justified?, the authors, the editors of the journal, led by editor-in-chief Thomas Lüscher, repeatedly criticize a post I wrote…
Medicine Or Mass Murder? Guideline Based on Discredited Research May Have Caused 800,000 Deaths In Europe Over The Last 5 Years
January 15, 2014 by 2 Comments
Last summer British researchers provoked concern when they published a paper raising the possibility that by following an established guideline UK doctors may have caused as many as 10,000 deaths each year. Now they have gone a step further and published an estimate that the same guideline may have led to the deaths of as many…
The Fate Of New Cholesterol Drugs Depends On IMPROVE-IT
November 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Prospects for the highly anticipated new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs, the PCSK9 inhibitors, took a wild roller coaster ride this week. The publication of new lipid guidelines by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology led many observers to think that the promising new drugs under development by Regeneron (in partnership with Sanofi),…
Invest In Pharma? Maybe Go To Vegas Instead.
November 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Instead of investing in pharma maybe you should go to Vegas instead. You’ll have a lot more fun and, a new study suggests, your chances of winning are just as good. The key to understanding the pharmaceutical industry is predicting sales of individual drugs. But, in a study published in Nature Reviews, 3 consultants at McKinsey & Company determined…
A Vision Unfulfilled: Reflections On The Death Of TheHeart.Org (1999-2013)
October 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
(Updated, October 25–) On Friday, September 20 the cardiology website TheHeart.Org died. It lost its separate and unique identity and became a part of Medscape (which is owned by WebMD). I played a part in the founding and development of TheHeart.Org (THO) and I mourn its loss. What follows is some of that story and why…
Realistic Expectations For New ‘Breakthrough’ Blood Pressure Technology
September 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Early trials of renal denervation, the innovative new catheter-based blood pressure lowering technology, have resulted in extremely impressive drops in systolic blood pressure in the range of 30 mm Hg. These results have sparked a great deal of excitement in the hypertension community and stirred the interest of a multitude of medical device companies. Some…
Recent €23 Million Biotech IPO Relied Heavily On Questionable Research
July 8, 2013 by 2 Comments
A successful €23 million initial public offering (IPO) last week was based on highly questionable research, according to a group of UK physicians who have scrutinized the available data. In addition, one of the researchers, a prominent European cardiologist, failed to disclose in a key paper that he helped to start, and held a significant interest…
Paper Raises Hundreds Of Questions About The Integrity Of Stem Cell Research Group
July 2, 2013 by 2 Comments
Serious questions have been raised about the integrity and validity of research performed by a well-established German stem cell research group. A paper published in the International Journal of Cardiology exhaustively details a multitude of discrepancies and contradictions in papers from the researcher’s group. Further, the revelation of such widespread misconduct may lead to broader disturbing questions about…
The FDA, Surrogate Endpoints, And Blood Pressure Drugs
April 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In recent years the FDA has come under increasing fire for approving drugs on the basis of surrogate endpoints without any evidence of greater clinical benefit. The most famous example of this is the diabetes drug rosiglitazone. Despite strong evidence demonstrating that it was effective at lower blood glucose levels– the surrogate endpoint– serious questions…
The Best Doctor Blog On The Internet
January 25, 2013 by 3 Comments
Let me say it right away: the best blog written by a doctor, at least that I’ve ever read, is by a provincial South African general surgeon who calls himself Bongi. He doesn’t write about complex medical policy, and he doesn’t worry too much about appropriate use criteria or whether a patient who needs anticoagulation…
Exercise And The Limitations Of Observational Studies
December 3, 2012 by 10 Comments
Last week I wrote twice about exercise. Strictly speaking, both stories were complete lies. The first story was about a study published in the Lancet which analyzed data from more than 10,000 patients at 2 VA Medical Centers and found that patients with high fitness levels were less likely to die than patients with low fitness levels. The pattern held…
Yet Another Look At The Transcendental Meditation Paper
November 25, 2012 by 86 Comments
Editor’s note: Below are two responses to Robert Schneider’s defense of his Transcendental Meditation paper, which Schneider wrote in response to my earlier article about the publication of his paper. In the first part I respond to some of the general issues raised by Schneider. The second part, from Sanjay Kaul, addresses the statistical issues discussed by…
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