Medicine

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This is a community for medical professionals. Please see the Medical Community Hub for other communities.

Official Lemmy community for /r/Medicine.

[email protected] is a virtual lounge for physicians and other medical professionals from around the world to talk about the latest advances, controversies, ask questions of each other, have a laugh, or share a difficult moment.

This is a highly moderated community. Please read the rules carefully before posting or commenting.

Related Communities

Medical Community Hub
Medicine (📍)
Medicine Canada
Premed
Premed Canada
Public Health

See the pinned post in the Medical Community Hub for links and descriptions. link ([email protected])

Rules

Violations may result in a warning, removal, or ban based on moderator discretion. The rule numbers will correspond to those on /r/Medicine, and where differences are listed where relevant. Please also remember that instance rules for mander.xyz will also apply.

Flairs & Starter Comment: Lemmy does not have user flairs, but you are welcome to highlight your role in the healthcare system, however you feel is appropriate. Please also include a starter comment to explain why the link is of interest to the community and to start the conversation. Link posts without starter comments may be temporarily or permanently removed. (rule is different from /r/Medicine)
No requests for professional advice or general medical information: You may not solicit medical advice or share personal health anecdotes about yourself, family, acquaintances, or celebrities, seek comments on care provided by other clinicians, discuss billing disputes, or otherwise seek a professional opinion from members of the community. General queries about medical conditions, prognosis, drugs, or other medical topics from the lay public are not allowed.
No promotions, advertisements, surveys, or petitions: Surveys (formal or informal) and polls are not allowed on this community. You may not use the community to promote your website, channel, community, or product. Market research is not allowed. Petitions are not allowed. Advertising or spam may result in a permanent ban. Prior permission is required before posting educational material you were involved in making.
Link to high-quality, original research whenever possible: Posts which rely on or reference scientific data (e.g. an announcement about a medical breakthrough) should link to the original research in peer-reviewed medical journals or respectable news sources as judged by the moderators. Avoid login or paywall requirements when possible. Please submit direct links to PDFs as text/self posts with the link in the text. Sensationalized titles, misrepresentation of results, or promotion of blatantly bad science may lead to removal.
Act professionally and decently: /c/medicine is a public forum that represents the medical community and comments should reflect this. Please keep disagreement civil and focused on issues. Trolling, abuse, and insults (either personal or aimed at a specific group) are not allowed. Do not attack other users' flair. Keep offensive language to a minimum and do not use ethnic, sexual, or other slurs. Posts, comments, or private messages violating Reddit's content policy will be removed and reported to site administration.
No personal agendas: Users who primarily post or comment on a single pet issue on this community (as judged by moderators) will be asked to broaden participation or leave. Comments from users who appear on this community only to discuss a specific political topic, medical condition, health care role, or similar single-topic issues will be removed. Comments which deviate from the topic of a thread to interject an unrelated personal opinion (e.g. politics) or steer the conversation to their pet issue will be removed.
Protect patient confidentiality: Posting protected health information may result in an immediate ban. Please anonymize cases and remove any patient-identifiable information. For health information arising from the United States, follow the HIPAA Privacy Rule's De-Identification Standard.
No careers or homework questions: Questions relating to medical school admissions, courses or exams should be asked elsewhere. Links to medical training communitys and a compilation of careers and specialty threads are available on the /r/medicine wiki. Medical career advice may be asked. (rule is different from /r/Medicine)
Throwaway accounts: There are currently no limits on account age or 'karma'. (rule is different from /r/Medicine)
No memes or low-effort posts: Memes, image links (including social media screenshots), images of text, or other low-effort posts or comments are not allowed. Videos require a text post or starter comment that summarizes the video and provides context.
No Covid misinformation, conspiracy theories, or other nonsense

Moderators may act with their judgement beyond the scope of these rules to maintain the quality of the community. If your post doesn't show up shortly after posting, make sure that it meets our posting criteria. If it does, please message a moderator with a link to your post and explanation. You are free to message the moderation team for a second opinion on moderator actions.

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MODERATORS

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101

The threat of fungal infections is growing. Why is it so hard to make new drugs? (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

2 comments fedilink

102

Trial offers hope for millions that jab could prevent rheumatoid arthritis (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

1 comments fedilink

103

DNA testing: What happens if your genetic data is hacked? (www.bbc.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

3 comments fedilink

In autumn 2023, a hacker called Golem posted on a well-known message board for cybercriminals, announcing a trove of data stolen from 23andMe, one of the biggest names in at-home DNA testing. The company later acknowledged that the hacker had gained access to personal information in 6.9 million of its users' profiles.

It seemed to be an ethnically targeted attack: Golem boasted about having access to the accounts of people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage who had sent their DNA to 23andMe, and offered to sell it to whoever was prepared to pay. News began to circulate suggesting the data breach on Friday 6 October 2023 may have even had antisemitic motivations.

A post purportedly from Golem offered for sale "tailored ethnic groupings, individualized data sets, pinpointed origin estimations, haplogroup details, phenotype information, photographs, links to hundreds of potential relatives, and, most crucially, raw data profiles".

104

Timely access to vaccines: stronger international laws needed to prevent 'parallel pandemic of human rights,' say experts (medicalxpress.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

0 comments fedilink

"Developed countries were hoarding vaccines and using the power of intellectual property law as a tool to ensure that they would continue to offer access to their own," says Faith Majekolagbe of the University of Alberta's Faculty of Law.

In a recent paper that contributes to the debate, published in the Australian Journal of Human Rights, Majekolagbe argues that international human rights law needs stronger teeth in the face of well-established protections for intellectual property. Otherwise, nations without timely access to a vaccine will once again suffer disproportionate harm.

We also now know that allowing a virus to run rampant in any population is short-sighted, giving it a better chance of mutating and endangering us all.

"The pandemic precipitated and exacerbated an existing but largely unresolved tension between the role of intellectual property protection in incentivizing innovation and the need to facilitate access to innovative goods on equitable and affordable terms," write Majekolagbe and her co-author, Tolulope Anthony Adekola of the University of Queensland.

105

Some virtual care companies putting patient data at risk, new study finds (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

1 comments fedilink

(emphasis mine)

If you visit a doctor virtually through a commercial app, the information you submit in the app could be used to promote a particular drug or service, says the leader of a new Canadian study involving industry insiders.

The industry insiders "were concerned that care might not be designed to be the best care for patients, but rather might be designed to increase uptake of the drug or vaccine to meet the pharmaceutical company objectives," said Dr. Sheryl Spithoff, a physician and scientist at Women's College Hospital in Toronto.

Virtual care took off as a convenient way to access health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing patients to consult with a doctor by videoconference, phone call or text.

But the study's researchers and others who work in the medical field have raised concerns that some virtual care companies aren't adequately protecting patients' private health information from being used by drug companies and shared with third parties that want to market products and services.

Spithoff co-authored the study in this week's BMJ Open, based on interviews with 18 individuals employed or affiliated with the Canadian virtual care industry between October 2021 and January 2022. The researchers also analyzed 31 privacy documents from the websites of more than a dozen companies.

The for-profit virtual care industry valued patient data and "appears to view data as a revenue stream," the researchers found.

One employee with a virtual care platform told the researchers that the platform, "at the behest of the pharmaceutical company, would conduct 'A/B testing' by putting out a new version of software to a percentage of patients to see if the new version improved uptake of the drug."

106

New paper explains why females are prone to autoimmune diseases (arstechnica.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

1 comments fedilink

107

U.S., anti-abortion group’s studies retracted before Supreme Court mifepristone case (arstechnica.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

1 comments fedilink

Scientific journal publisher Sage has retracted key abortion studies cited by anti-abortion groups in a legal case aiming to revoke regulatory approval of the abortion and miscarriage medication, mifepristone—a case that has reached the US Supreme Court, with a hearing scheduled for March 26.

108

120

One in 10 premature births in the United States linked to plastic chemicals: Study (phys.org)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink

The chemicals, called phthalates, are used to soften plastic and can be found in thousands of consumer items including plastic containers and wrapping, beauty care products and toys.

Phthalates have been known for decades to be "hormone disruptors" which affect a person's endocrine system and have been previously linked to obesity, heart disease, some cancers and fertility problems.

Because they affect hormones, these chemicals "can precipitate early labor and early birth", lead study author Leonardo Trasande of New York University's Langone Health center says.

109

Visualising multiple sclerosis with a new MRI procedure (ethz.ch)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

2 comments fedilink

110

Dance mat-style game helps stop older people falling (www.newscientist.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

0 comments fedilink

111

US patient ‘happy again’ after brain implant treats epilepsy and OCD (www.digitaljournal.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

3 comments fedilink