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MEDIA, THE
A study of media coverage of new drugs found that 53 percent of news reports failed to disclose drug risks; 40 percent described benefits without any statistical context, such as a person's actual risk of getting a particular disease; 70 percent failed to mention the drug's cost-effectiveness; and 61 percent failed to reveal when the experts being quoted had financial ties to drug makers. You have to wonder what else they're leaving out. (Rumor has it that life on Mars was discovered in 1984, but it happened the same week as Michael Jackson's head transplant, so the media missed it.) |
MEDICAL DIAGNOSES
In 40 percent of cases, autopsies reveal a major misdiagnosis by doctors of the patient's condition; in about one-third of these cases, the patients would have lived if proper treatment had been given. Comfortingly, though, the other two-thirds didn't have a chance anyway. |
MEDICAL JOURNALS
Fewer than 40 percent of reports on drug trials in medical journals adequately explain the severity of side effects, and fewer than 30 percent adequately explain drug toxicity. This means your doctor knows as little as you do about the medicines he's prescribing. |
MEN
One-and-a-half million reasons to become a nun: more than 1.5 million women each year in the U.S. are subjected to physical or sexual violence by a boyfriend, husband, or date. |
MENSTRUAL CYCLE
Female athletes are more likely to suffer an anterior cruciate ligament injury during the ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle, and women who suffer from migraines are twice as likely to have one during the first two days of their period than during the rest of the month. The only advantage anyone has come up with is that you get to skip gym class every month. |
MEXICO
Next on our world tour (for those of you who are still standing): the Halls of Montezuma or, for many of you, the Stalls of Montezuma. More than three in ten of those tourists who traveled to Mexico got sick. |
MIAMI
In a study of sixty-eight American cities, Miami was eleventh worst in terms of road traffic, with 47 percent of daily travel taking place in congested conditions. Not only that, you need a phrasebook of Spanish slang just to figure out what the other drivers are yelling at you (rule of thumb: anything containing the words "tu madre" is not good). |
MICE
In inner cities of the U.S., 95 percent of homes were found to have at least one room containing mouse allergen, which can cause severe asthma in one child in five. |
MIDDLE CLASS, BEING
The Americans most susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder after the attacks in New York and Washington in September 2001 were members of the middle class. The poor were less stunned by the discovery that the world is not a safe place. |
MIDWEST, THE
The Midwest is second only to the West as the region of the U.S. with the highest rate of crimes against person and property. It's second only to the South as the region with the highest rate of stroke deaths after hospital release. Not only that, global warming is going to lower water levels in the Great Lakes, leading to reduced water supplies and more costly transportation. |
