Category Archives: Medicine
Oral Hygiene and General Health
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th November 2025Most physicians are content to note the condition of their patients’ oral hygiene and then leave its management to the dentist. But poor oral hygiene is a state of chronic inflammation with all the attendant ill effects that follow in its wake. It’s a very accurate forecast of serious health problems in the near future….
› Read the full entry
Medical Reporting in the Lay Press
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th October 2025Relying on the lay press for medical advice can often lead to incorrect conclusions or misguided directions. The article linked below is a good example of how well-meaning but improperly thought out reporting can lead to conclusions not based on solid experimental design or reasoning. Drinking More Than 1 Can of Any Soda Daily Linked…
› Read the full entry
Acetaminophen During Pregnancy
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd September 2025Confusion now hath made his masterpiece Politics and medicine make for a bad amalgam under the best of circumstances. The Trump administration’s warning that acetaminophen (best known as Tylenol, but widely available under other marques) might cause autism has created a mess – there’s no other word for the situation. There are so many things…
› Read the full entry
Mammography in Elderly Women
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th July 2025I’ve written several articles about the difficulties inherent in screening for diseases that are common and associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The two most prominent are breast cancer and prostate cancer. Both have screening tests that are widely used, but the public and many physicians seem to be unaware of their limitations. Overdiagnosis is…
› Read the full entry
Heart Disease Mortality Declines
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th July 2025Heart Disease Mortality in the United States, 1970 to 2022 is a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. “From 1970 to 2022, overall age‐adjusted heart disease mortality decreased by 66% from 1970 to 2022 (from 761 to 258 per 100 000). In 1970, 91% of all heart disease deaths were ischemic, declining…
› Read the full entry
President Trump’s Aspirin Treatment
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd July 2025The recent reports regarding President Trump’s swollen ankles and hand bruising mentioned that he is taking aspirin. His press secretary said, “This is consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen.” This statement may have been true 10…
› Read the full entry
The Age of Diagnosis – Book Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st July 2025A British neurologist has written The Age of Diagnosis – How our obsession with medical labels is making us sicker. Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan’s book is divided into a prologue, an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion. Each chapter deals with a specific disease or diagnostic category that suffers from the unintended consequences of overdiagnosis. This…
› Read the full entry
COVID Vaccination During the First Timester of Prgenancy
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th June 2025A study of pregnant women in Israel who received the COVID-19 vaccination during the first trimester of pregnancy has been released in a preprint PDF – ie, it hasn’t been through peer review. The vaccine used in Israel was almost entirely the Pfizer BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine. Pregnant women were excluded from the pivotal randomized clinical…
› Read the full entry
Limited vs Lethal Prostate Cancer
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th May 2025Former President Joe Biden’s diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer may cause a lot of frightened seniors (>70) to react inappropriately. Some may ask their doctors for a PSA (prostate specific antigen) test despite the US Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendation not to screen for prostate cancer in men older than 70. The problem with PSA…
› Read the full entry
The “Experts” on Biden’s Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th May 2025The press is quoting a bevy of “cancer experts” pontificating on how it’s inconceivable that the former president Biden didn’t have a PSA test while he was president. They seem to think that the PSA test is an infallible guide to the diagnosis and subsequent successful treatment of prostate cancer. The use of routine PSA…
› Read the full entry
