To the Editor: Meloncelli and colleagues1 have provided clear evidence that a fasting venous plasma glucose (FVPG) assessment may be used to decrease the number of unnecessary oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTTs) for low risk women. This would be a very welcome step forward. However, it does [...]
At 38, Carla Loughnane was told she had so few eggs she was near menopause and didn't need birth control. Within six months, she was pregnant. Her twin girls were not yet two years old. This "miracle" baby was a joy, but made her doubt years [...]
Corporations have used feminist language to promote their products for decades. In the 1980s, companies co-opted messaging about female autonomy to encourage women’s consumption of unhealthy commodities, such as tobacco and alcohol. Today, feminist narratives around empowerment and women’s rights are being co-opted to market interventions [...]
Good for business but bad for women. In her 2021 book Unwell Women,1 the feminist historian Elinor Cleghorn charts the long and troubling story of medicine’s approach to women, their bodies, and their illnesses. From Plato’s description of “vexed and aggrieved” wombs that wandered throughout the body [...]
Promotion of non-evidence based tests and treatments using empowerment messages risks women being overdiagnosed and overtreated, argue Tessa Copp and colleagues. Commercial organisations have an extraordinary influence on population health through how they engage with and shape social movements to market their products.1 Corporations have historically exploited [...]
Researchers find promotions encouraging women to take charge of their health could lead to overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment. Corporations are co-opting feminist messages around women’s wellbeing to promote useless health tests and treatments, an analysis by Australian researchers has found. Published in the British Medical Journal [...]
Although clinicians acknowledged the limitations of the AMH test in predicting natural conception and would not offer the AMH test in the hypothetical scenario, many reported having used the test in their clinical practice for reasons not supported by the evidence (e.g. reproductive planning). Further, [...]
To the Editor: Good clinical decisions should weigh benefits against harms. The recent JAMA Insights article on gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) focused on the potential benefits of increased detection and treatment of GDM and subsequent promotion of cardiovascular health.1 Unmentioned were the potential detrimental effects of overdiagnosis [...]
This study used a large longitudinal community-based population cohort to identify the fertility treatment pathways used by participants with and without PCOS and investigate whether any pathways were more likely to result in a birth. Our findings are in line with previous studies showing that [...]
We investigated differences in cumulative incidence of first distant recurrence following non-metastatic breast cancer over a time period when new adjuvant therapies became available in Australia. We conducted a health record linkage study of females with localized (T1-3N0) or regional (T4 or N+) breast cancer [...]