Inconsistent allocations of harms versus benefits may exacerbate environmental inequality

Thiazolidinediones: do harms outweigh benefits?

Judging the benefits and harms of medicines.

How should society judge the safety and efficacy of drugs? This was the question posed by England’s chief medical officer, Sally Davies, in February 2015. Citing controversies about oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and statins, as well as growing disquiet about overmedication by doctors and conflicts of interest among researchers, she feared an erosion of public trust and asked the Academy of Medical Scie...

On the Approximation of Inconsistent Inequality Systems

In this paper is analyzed the minimal correction problem for an inconsistent linear inequality system. By the correction we mean avoiding its contradictory nature by means of relaxing the constraints. When the system of inequalities Ax ≤ b has no solutions, we are interested in a vector that satisfies the system in a Least Squares (LS) sense, i.e. a vector x ∈ R that minimizes the quantity ∥∥(A...

The benefits and harms of deprescribing.

Deprescribing is the process of trial withdrawal of inappropriate medications. Currently, the strongest evidence for benefit of deprescribing is from cohort and observational studies of withdrawal of specific medication classes that have shown better patient outcomes, mainly through resolution of adverse drug reactions. Additional potential benefits of deprescribing include reduced financial co...

Hypothyroidism may exacerbate valproate-related hyperammonemic delirium

A 41-year-old woman was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 31. After a thyroidectomy at 33 years old, she was found to have subclinical hypothyroidism: the thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) was 6.196 uIU/ml (reference range: 0.34-5.60) and free thyroxine (FT4) was 0.46 ng/dl (reference range: 0.54-1.40). No intervention was given due to her refusal. She started to participate in the day-care un...