Top Quotes of the Week

“Medical journals are in the communication business. People should never underestimate that. We will be blogging more. If our content is sitting in the corner collecting dust, it’s not doing anything for anyone.” Howard Bauchner, the newly appointed editor-in-chief of JAMA.

“Medical journals are in the communication business. People should never underestimate that. We will be blogging more. If our content is sitting in the corner collecting dust, it’s not doing anything for anyone.” Howard Bauchner, the newly appointed editor-in-chief of JAMA.

The deal struck last week by the President and Congress to avoid default is “a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.” New York Times editorialist and Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman.

“Intensive glucose lowering treatment of type 2 diabetes should be considered with caution and therapeutic escalation should be limited. The harm associated with severe hypoglycemia might counterbalance the potential benefit of intensive glucose lowering treatment,” Catherine Cornu and colleagues, in reporting the results of their meta-analysis on the subject.

The intensive approach to glucose control is “probably less efficacious and more difficult to achieve than lipid lowering and blood pressure control.” David Preiss and Kausik Ray, commenting on the above study.

“Women will realize the importance of this decision every time they go to the pharmacy counter and pick up their birth control without paying a copay.” Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, commenting on the announcement by HHS that it will require health insurance plans to offer a variety of preventive health measures for women at no charge as part of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.