Replies to post #53111 on Biotech Values

[ThomasS]

Ribavirin: Allow me to be more precise: A GI Specialist worth a damn MUST adjust down the initial dose to mitigate severe anemia; yet, a less than stellar Doc may not adjust UP the dose if anemia is deemed to be inconsequential to achieve greater VR.
In their defense, they may not adjust up if the currently available data suggests a higher dose is not more efficacious; however, most GI docs have so much on their plate that they may not be up-to-date on real-time peer-reviewed journal data. Also, the drug causes a host of other side-effects which may preclude "chancing" an uppage of dose.
(The hydrocortisone lifestyle, thought process alterations, etc.)
Life-threatening anemia drives the dosage. I inquired about Procrit-style mitigants... but the data at the time suggested no benefit and large expense on top of the already expensive treatment.

[DewDiligence]

>ScienceDaily, MedicalNewsToday, Scirus, TherapeuticsDaily are reputable sites per se, and like any news service ala Reuters, UPI etc, can print sometimes erroneous articles…<

These articles are rarely erroneous—the problem with them is that they are rarely newsworthy. For instance, variable vs fixed dosing of ribavirin is a story that broke almost 1.5 years ago when SGP’s WIN-R study was completed (#msg-11283408).

A number of readers of this board—myself included—find it annoying to have old stories presented to the board are though they were new stories. Old stories with a new twist are always welcome, of course. However, in some cases, your posts are repetitions of old material with no new angle. If you can make a concerted effort to weed out such posts, it will be greatly appreciated. Regards, Dew

[poorgradstudent]

OT: Preciouslife

Many of these "articles" are forwarded to these sources by the PR arm of the hospital / research institution. The internal vetting of these "newsworthy" articles at the institution is next to nil, and there is a team of people who have the job of making the most mundane research article sound "new to you" (like the old nbc reruns).

Hence silly PRs like children with ADHD who are appropriately medicated do better in school than those who aren't appropriately medicated. Duh. Further digging into that one would have revealed that it was simply a retrospective database search and nothing novel or prospective. Yet the PR did well to hide this fact.

There was also one a while ago about how children on exercise bikes (or whatever it was) while playing video games gained less weight than those not engaged in any exercise. Duh.

So just an fyi... the PR departments at many of these reputable institutions are complicit with the "researchers" who forward their mundane results to them. I know. I'm at one :-(