Jeanne Lenzer

• contributor and former associate editor, The BMJ. Author, The Danger Within Us: America's Untested, Unregulated Medical Device Industry and One Man's Battle to Survive It
• medical investigative journalist, NY USA at Independent investigative journalist

Examines the rise of the medical industrial complex through the lens of medical devices and asking a central question: Should we continue to treat medicine as a commodity - or a common good?

Jeanne Lenzer explores the debate among healthcare professionals about whether to make public their concerns over Donald Trump’s mental health US healthcare professionals are not supposed to comment on patients they have not examined themselves, and they can only discuss their patients with others if they have the patient’s consent or consider tha...

Independent analyses of medical research are prized by doctors concerned about industry bias. Created in 1984, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has earned a reputation for its independent, objective guidance on clinical preventive services, and many have long viewed its recommendations as a bulwark against the increasing ex...

Advocates say that electronic health records increase patient safety through computerized prescriber order entry and integration of decision supports and guidelines. They also vastly increase opportunities for clinical research using “big data.”123 But critics, like Steven J Stack, the immediate past president of the American Medical Association (...

Three psychiatrists have written to President Barrack Obama urging him to request a “full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation by an impartial team of investigators” of the president elect, Donald Trump. In their letter to Obama the psychiatrists wrote that they had “grave concerns” over Trump’s “widely reported symptoms of mental instability—i...

Manufacturers have told the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that restricting their ability to engage in “truthful and non-misleading speech” about off-label uses of drugs and devices infringes their rights to free speech. The comments were made during hearings held in Washington, DC, on 9 and 10 of November on whether to allow manufacturers...

Scientists at the United States’ public health agency have urged their employers to “clean up this house,” claiming that conflicts of interest are undermining trust in the agency.1 The scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, sent an anonymous letter at the end of August to Carmen S Villar, chief of staff a...

The US presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump revealed their conflicting stances over the future of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law in the second presidential debate held at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, on Sunday 9 October. The Democrats’ candidate, Clinton, vowed to fix the Affordable Care Act, wh...

A study claiming a rise in metastatic prostate cancer has been questioned, and the American Cancer Society posted a response after calls from journalists.1 2 The study, led by Edward Schaeffer, professor of urology at Northwestern University in Chicago, examined the records of 767 550 men with prostate cancer diagnosed from 2004 to 2013. They foun...

The FDA’s new head has been accused of being too close to industry. Here, he tells Jeanne Lenzer why partnership with the private sector is vital Robert Califf, the new commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, is on a mission: he wants to streamline medical research and to improve the methods used to evaluate drugs and devices in order...

Jeanne Lenzer asks whether bias and profit are forcing some doctors into unnecessary treatment programs for impaired physicians Doctors are substantially more likely than the general population to be depressed and to commit suicide.1 Yet critics charge that the support systems put in place to help physicians in the United States are failing them a...

Jeanne Lenzer reports on a growing movement aiming to overcome the medical and social barriers to appropriate care The fourth Lown Institute conference held in Chicago, Illinois, in April brought nearly 300 doctors, patients, policy makers, and activists together to discuss barriers to “right care.” The focus was on how to tackle the problems of...

Otis Brawley has never been afraid to go against convention. Jeanne Lenzer finds out what drives him Otis Webb Brawley, chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society and professor of oncology and epidemiology at Emory University, is a trailblazer. He has faced fierce criticism at times for his seemingly radical views, yet he...

As relations between Cuba and the West have thawed and Barack Obama makes the first visit by a sitting US president to Cuba in 88 years, Jeanne Lenzer explores some lessons the world could learn from the country’s health service On 30 June 2015, the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization announced that Cuba had become t...

The ongoing US blockade of Cuba is preventing US researchers from studying a drug they say is highly promising and could reduce the need for amputations caused by diabetic foot ulcers. The drug, human recombinant epidermal growth factor (hrEGF), sold as Heberprot-P, was developed by Cuban researchers at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biote...

A controversial study of the effects on patient mortality of sleep deprivation among resident physicians that came under fire last year has been criticized again, this time for its publication by the New England Journal of Medicine . The researchers examined deaths among people cared for by resident doctors who could work duty periods of 28 hours...

The claim that cancer screening saves lives is based on fewer deaths due to the target cancer. Vinay Prasad and colleagues argue that reductions in overall mortality should be the benchmark and call for higher standards of evidence for cancer screening Despite growing appreciation of the harms of cancer screening,1 2 3 advocates still claim that i...

US Food and Drug Administration officials had multiple meetings with leaders of the medical device industry to craft legislation that critics say will severely weaken regulatory oversight of the industry, an investigation by the online news service Inside Health Policy has found. The revelations, discovered in emails and documents obtained under t...

Despite questions about its effectiveness the campaign is beginning to change attitudes, Jeanne Lenzer reports The Choosing Wisely campaign has suffered some setbacks lately. First came the withdrawal of a medical professional society from the campaign, and then came an analysis showing that doctors haven’t changed their practices since the launch...

Revelations that two studies waived limits on first year resident doctors’ working hours to investigate whether their patients were more likely to die have led to a public outcry.1 Public Citizen, a watchdog organization that is based in Washington, DC, and the American Medical Student Association are calling for an investigation into the studies....

A new documentary film, The Widowmaker , has split the cardiology community with its enthusiastic promotion of coronary computed tomography scanning. The dramatic, 93 minute film has made its way on to Netflix, Amazon instant play, iTunes, GooglePlay, and other media platforms. Director Patrick Forbes uses big name celebrities (Gillian Anderson and...

Godlee’s comment that “there is little dispute that non-financial conflicts of interest—such as academic passion and personal belief—are just as important [as], if harder to track” than financial conflicts, begs examination for two reasons.1 Firstly, personal biases are generally, although not always, multidirectional; some experts might prefer on...

After revelations that the CDC is receiving some funding from industry, Jeanne Lenzer investigates how it might have affected the organisation’s decisions

After a five year investigation into institutional corruption, experts want to get tough on drug companies and individuals, reports Jeanne Lenzer

Selvapatt and colleagues made several points: large numbers of people are infected; birth cohort screening is cost effective; previously treated patients without severe fibrosis are unlikely to progress; sustained virological response improves quality of life; treatment reduces mortality; and newer agents have fewer side effects (last two also allu...

We thank Foster and colleagues for their comments.1 2 Projections of disease progression that are based on natural history studies from tertiary referral centres may exaggerate hepatitis C virus (HCV) related morbidity and mortality. Inception cohort and epidemiological data suggest that only a minority of infected people will progress to end stage...

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched an ambitious campaign urging people to take an antiviral drug for flu if one is prescribed by a doctor, saying that it could “save lives.” The claim is at the center of a heated controversy. The Food and Drug Administration told The BMJ that data submitted to it for review do not suppo...

A local newspaper raised the alarm over doctors allegedly prescribing antipsychotic drugs for large numbers of foster children just to calm them down. Jeanne Lenzer reports

Ezekiel Emanuel denies accusations that he supports euthanasia but says that the US should focus on quality not length of life, Jeanne Lenzer reports Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the chief architects of the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare, has unleashed controversy after he published an article in the Atlantic magazine entitled, “Why I hope to d...

Nearly half (48%) of all US adults aged 75 or older are taking cholesterol lowering drugs, says a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.1 However, some professional groups have challenged the report’s conclusion that “there is extensive and consistent evidence supporting the use of choleste...

Long term care facilities in the United States waste about $2bn (£1.28bn; €1.61bn) in unexpired medicines every year, a report by the public radio show Marketplace said on 10 December.1 Other estimates, which included all sources of wasted medicines, showed that as much as $5bn worth of unexpired prescription drugs in unopened blister packs, bott...

A US navy officer and nurse has been reported as refusing to participate in force feeding detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Cori Crider, an attorney with Reprieve, a London based legal defense group, said that her client, the Guantanamo detainee Abu Wa’el Dhiab, told her that a nurse who at first took part in the force feedings was so upset...

The chairman and one of two additional co-chairs of the working panel that wrote the controversial cholesterol guidelines on reducing cardiovascular risk, released last week,1 2 had ties to the drug industry at the time they were asked to lead the panel. And, in all, eight of the 15 panelists had industry ties. The chairman, Neil J Stone, professo...

A group of doctors from the United States joined with international colleagues in a call to end their country’s embargo against Cuba during a critical care conference held in Havana in mid-September. The doctors called the embargo a “humanitarian catastrophe . . . that violates both moral standards and international law.” In a letter to President...

Despite repeated calls to prohibit or limit conflicts of interests among authors and sponsors of clinical guidelines, the problem persists. Jeanne Lenzer investigates On 13 April 1990, in an unprecedented action, the US National Institutes of Health faxed a letter to every physician in the US on how to correctly prescribe a breakthrough treatment...

A “model” program that was part of a controversial plan to screen all US citizens for mental illness has announced that it is closing down. On 15 November, TeenScreen, a program to detect depression in young people, announced on its website: “The National Center will be winding down its program at the end of this year.” TeenScreen was endorsed by...

An independent meta-analysis of vaccines against influenza has found that claims of benefit have been significantly exaggerated. The report, released last month by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, was based on a comprehensive review of data published from 1967 to 2012.1 Evidence for “consistent high...

Treating patients with stage 1 (mild) hypertension has no benefit, a Cochrane review of studies conducted in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States has found.1 Data from four randomised controlled trials, involving 8912 patients with stage 1 hypertension (systolic blood pressure 140-159 mm Hg or diastolic 90-99 mm Hg, or both) and tr...

Nearly 140 doctor and health related organisations are protesting against proposed legislation to block health reform and close down the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a federal agency founded by Congress to “improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans.” On 15 July, the House Appropriati...

A prominent medical school professor has been subjected by his university to “egregious” harassment after he wrote an editorial critical of routine prostate cancer screening, according to an internal investigation at the university. Michael Wilkes, former vice dean for medical education and now director of Global Health, a research and policy inst...

A report by a watchdog group has concluded that prescribed medicines are “one of the most significant perils to human health resulting from human activity.” The group based their conclusion on their analysis of the US Food and Drug Administration’s database of serious adverse events. The report was published on 31 May in QuarterWatch, a publicatio...

A consumer group has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration to pull the antidiabetes drug liraglutide from the market because of safety concerns. It warns that other drugs in its class may have similar effects to varying degrees. Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, a non-profit consumer advocacy organisation based in Washington, DC, sa...

The first randomised study of coronary artery bypass surgery was not carried out until 16 years after the procedure was first developed, a conference on overtreatment in US healthcare was told last week. When the results were published, they “provided no comfort for those doing the surgery,” as it showed no mortality benefit from surgery for stable...

A new bill in the US Congress would require all federally funded research to be placed online for free access within six months of publication, instead of the present 12 months. The Federal Research Public Access Act comes on the heels of a heated battle over the Research Works Act, a bill introduced to Congress in December 2011 that would have pr...

A medical doctor and former consultant to Takeda Pharmaceuticals is charging in a whistleblower lawsuit that the company failed to report serious adverse events related to the antidiabetes drug pioglitazone (marketed as Actos). Helen Ge states in her lawsuit that Takeda “instructed medical reviewers not to report hundreds of non-hospitalized or no...

At least four members of a key committee advising the US Food and Drug Administration on the safety of a top selling drug have had financial ties to its manufacturers, raising questions about the rigor with which the agency minimises potential conflicts of interest. Court documents reviewed by the BMJ and Washington Monthly show that at least four...

Labels on the popular birth control pills Yasmin and Yaz should be strengthened to include more information about the possibility that they could increase the risk of blood clots, an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday 8 December. The panel, which voted 21 to five in favour of changing the labels, stopped short...

A recommendation that all boys in the United States receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine ( BMJ 2011;343:d7068, doi:10.1136/bmj.d7068) has been challenged by two medical organisations that raise questions about the financial interests of guideline writers, politicians, and organisations promoting the vaccine. John Brehany, executive direc...

Twenty two US labour, consumer, religious, environmental, and human rights organisations have charged the Obama administration with reversing modest free trade reforms passed by the Bush administration that enhanced access to drugs. The organisations sent a letter to the US trade representative, Ron Kirk, last week, citing leaked documents from th...

The prostate specific antigen (PSA) test should not be used to screen men for prostate cancer because it is unlikely to save lives and can cause harm, says an independent panel of experts. The US Preventive Services Task Force, an independent body of 16 experts that evaluates evidence to grade devices and rank preventive services, announced its re...

If you’ve ever wondered why discus throwers but not hammer throwers become dizzy while spinning, then wonder no more. “Hammer throwers, like ballet dancers and figure skaters, use “gaze fixation [which] permits post-rotatory nystagmus inhibition,” said Philippe Perrin, who with his team of researchers from the Netherlands and France was awarded the...

Five tobacco companies have filed a lawsuit in the US federal court against the Food and Drug Administration over the requirement to include graphic depictions of the risks of smoking on all cigarette packs by September 2012. The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act requires manufacturers to place colour pictures depicting the ri...

The drug company Pfizer has paid out $175 000 (£107 000; €120 000) to each of four families whose children died during a study of an experimental antibiotic in Kano, Nigeria. But the settlement has been strongly criticised by the families involved and by a leading ethicist in the United States, where Pfizer has its headquarters. The study was cond...

Profit rather than science is behind the large number of tests and procedures for heart disease carried out in the United States, concludes a new report from the independent consumer group Consumer Reports. These procedures are endangering the health of many people who are at low risk of developing heart disease, it says. A survey carried out for...

The US Food and Drug Administration has come under fire for suggesting that it may loosen conflict of interest rules for its advisers, because of a shortage of experts without ties to the drug and medical devices industry. The FDA’s commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, said that strict rules on conflict of interest implemented in 2008, which limit the...

The US government has proposed an extensive list of changes to current guidelines on studies involving human participants, in a bid to keep pace with substantial change in the nature of such research and the way it is conducted. If adopted, the changes will be the first in two decades to the “Common Rule” (a part of the Code of Federal Regulations...

Public health and medical aid organisations around the globe have condemned a fake vaccination operation reportedly run by the US Central Intelligence Agency as part of a ruse to capture and kill Osama bin Laden. The charity Medecins Sans Frontieres issued a statement on 14 July saying that the operation constituted a “dangerous abuse of medical c...

The highest administrative court in France has ruled that guidelines issued by the French Health Authority must be withdrawn immediately because of potential bias and undeclared conflicts of interest among the authors. Other guidelines are also being reviewed and will be withdrawn if similar problems emerge, the authority has said. The French Coun...

A scheme to reduce false and misleading advertising by drug manufacturers is drawing praise and criticism. In May 2010, the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research launched a “Bad Ad” programme with the goal of “encouraging health care professionals to recognize and report suspected untruthful or misleading drug p...