This is a great lift for companies like Navagenics and 23andMe, which sell genomic analysis services.

This is an important event that marks the approval of the first cancer vaccine. Unlike other vaccines, Provenge is not meant to prevent prostate cancer. It  boosts the immune system to fight the cancer more effectively.

The treatment is said to cost about $90,000. Not cheap considering today’s cost containment pressures but it is certainly good news for Dendreon, which has spent more than $700 million and 18 years to develop the product.

Today, the WSJ cites the results of a study by the California HealthCare Foundation on electronic medical records stating that 15% of the 1,849 adults surveyed reported concealing information from a physician if “the doctor had an electronic medical record system” that could share  information with other groups. Another 33% would “consider hiding information.”

Calling lying to doctors “practically an American tradition,” the WSJ highlights a recent survey of over 2,000 Americans by General Electric, the Cleveland Clinic and Ochsner Health System that outlined what patients mostly lie about as follows: Lack of exercise  (13%), compliance with medication instructions (9%), dietary habits (9%), drinking (7%), smoking (7%), use of illegal drugs (4%) and unprotected sex (4%).

Other interesting results of the General Electric study were the findings that:

• Most Americans give themselves ”A” or “B” grades, while doctors give Americans low grades on personal health
• Many Americans say they would rather live in pain than visit their doctor – and prioritize household chores over healthy living
• Most Americans see health of others on wrong track – but not their own
• Many Americans have an easier time answering non-health-related questions than facts about their own health

The study also revealed “opportunities for improvement in patient-doctor communication,” which is perhaps the best way to enhance patients’ trust in their physicians and their attitudes towards sharing information on- and offline.

Here’s a promising way to monitor medication adherence:

Seeking a way to confirm that patients have taken their medication, University of Florida engineering researchers have added a tiny microchip and digestible antenna to a standard pill capsule. The prototype is intended to pave the way for mass-produced pills that, when ingested, automatically alert doctors, loved ones or scientists working with patients in clinical drug trials. (University of Florida News)

Methods to increase patient adherence to medications are getting increasing attention since studies have found that up to 69% of all medication-related hospital admissions in the United States are due to poor adherence, which is estimated to cost the healthcare system $100 billion each year.

As physicians, we are struggling to figure out how best to use this technology in the interests of our patients and ourselves. Although the Internet is reshaping the content of the conversation between doctor and patient, we believe the core relationship should not change. A relative recently asked us, “What can you possibly learn from your doctor that is not available on the Internet?” We suspect we’ll hear such radical sentiments increasingly in the future.

The authors make a statement similar to what I’ve written on this blog before: “information and knowledge do not equal wisdom” and to truly empower individuals you need the wisdom of an expert:

… it is too easy for nonexperts to take at face value statements made confidently by voices of authority. Physicians are in the best position to weigh information and advise patients, drawing on their understanding of available evidence as well as their training and experience. If anything, the wealth of information on the Internet will make such expertise and experience more essential.

So is all the information on the Internet empowering us as much as we think it is or is it creating what can be called an information bubble?

Writing for the Harvard Business Review Blog, Umair Haque talks about how the Internet has created what he calls a “social media bubble:”

Despite all the excitement surrounding social media, the Internet isn’t connecting us as much as we think it is. It’s largely home to weak, artificial connections, what I call thin relationships.

Call it relationship inflation. Nominally, you have a lot more relationships — but in reality, few, if any, are actually valuable. Just as currency inflation debases money, so social inflation debases relationships.

I think a parallel phenomenon on the Internet is creating an information bubble that debases expertise. As a patient, it’s relatively easy to get a thin understanding of the facts about a particular disease by surfing the Internet but when it comes to serious health concerns, such information can lead to unwarranted patient-anxiety and even bad health outcomes. There is a lot of medical information about specific diseases on the Internet, some good and some bad. For a nonexpert, it’s not always easy to differentiate the two. Even if one finds a reliable source, it’s not always easy to digest the information and wrong conclusions can be made.

My recommendation is to generously use the Internet for health information but before you act on any advice or self-diagnose, “please talk to your doctor” or if you have a physician like me, email him.

There is an emerging body of evidence on using sound waves (ultrasound) to raise temperature levels in tumors and dangerous blood clots in order to shrink or eliminate them. The technology company InSightec is at the forefront of experimenting with this modality in the treatment of certain types of cancers and the type of brain strokes that are caused by blood clots. In each case, a high intensity focused ultrasound beam with MRI for image guidance is used to target the tumor or blood clot. Once the target reaches a certain level, it breaks up or dies by a process called coagulative necrosis.

This is a noninvasive procedure that can be less toxic than radiation therapy for cancer patients and safer than the potent injectable drugs that break up clots in stroke patients.

More info

A new editorial in Nature highlights a growing consensus among economists and policy-makers that “governments’ reliance on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the main proxy for social well-being and progress is leading the world in wrong and unsustainable directions.”

For example, healthcare spending in the U.S., representing about 17% of our GDP, may be inflating the GDP for the wrong reasons: lack of productivity and efficiency. It appears that “GDP makes no distinction between productive investment and profligate waste.”

“What we measure affects what we do. If we have the wrong measures, we will strive for the wrong things,” says economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University in New York. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and former chief economist at the World Bank, chaired the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, a panel of economists convened by the French government to look for better measures. Its report, released last September, recommends that indicators should be expanded beyond GDP to include those that reflect quality of life, sustainable development and the environment

In 1972, the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan opted to base its policy-making on indicators of "gross national happiness"

Hello Health has been an amazing journey that continues to make us all proud.