Shannon Brownlee: All Publications, Events and Press

Best nonfiction books of 2008 | Christian Science Monitor

Communications — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:00:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Overtreated by Shannon Brownlee included in Christian Science Monintor's list of best nonfiction books this year.

Quote Christian Science Monitor: "Award-winning science journalist Shannon Brownlee analyzes another phase of the US healthcare crisis: patients who are overtreated."

Toxic Town

Articles — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:01:00 -0500

Nancy Nichols made a deathbed promise to her sister that she would investigate the toxic history of their hometown, Waukegan, Ill., on the shore of Lake Michigan. A small town once known as the "Coho Capital of the World," Waukegan was a bucolic place for the girls to grow up, with happy summer days spent splashing in the lake. That was before the Environmental Protection Agency designated the town as the location of three separate Superfund sites. Beginning in the 1950s, the Outboard Marine Corporation, maker of… more

5 Myths on Our Sick Health Care System

Articles — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 12:19:00 -0500

With Congress ready to spend $700 billion to prop up the U.S. economy, enacting health-care reform may seem about as likely as the Dow hitting 10,000 again before the end of the year. But it may be more doable than you think, provided we dispel a few myths about how health care works and how much reform Americans are willing to stomach.

1. America has the best health care in the world.

Let's bury this one once and for all. The United States is No. 1 in… more

Doctors' Fees

Articles — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:33:00 -0500

A few weeks ago, devoted listeners of National Public Radio were treated to an episode of the award-winning radio series The Infinite Mind called "Prozac Nation: Revisited." The segment featured four prestigious medical experts discussing the controversial link between antidepressants and suicide. In their considered opinions, all four said that worries about the drugs have been overblown.

The radio show, which was broadcast nationwide and paid for in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, had the air of quiet, authoritative… more

Shannon Brownlee in New Scientist | 'Condition Critical: The Medical Crisis Facing America'

Communications — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:51:00 -0400

New America in the News:

In their speeches, both candidates stress increased access. McCain favours tax credits to encourage families to get insurance, while Obama proposes mandatory coverage for children, a new public insurance plan and a requirement for employers to provide health benefits for their workers. Yet each will struggle to widen coverage if they cannot control costs. “We need to do both at the same time,”says Shannon Brownlee, a specialist in health policy with the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tankin Washington… more

Shannon Brownlee and Phillip Longman's books named as 'Best on Health Policy' by Slate | 'To Your Health'

Communications — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:08:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Sometime in the next four years, the health care delivery system in the United States is going to change. That's a given because the current patchwork--costly and unreliable private health insurance, overcrowded and underfunded hospital emergency rooms, technophilic and procedure-incentivized physicians--is coming apart at the seams. Whatever solution the 44th president and the 111th Congress enact may or may not prove adequate. But rest assured they'll change something.

What that means for you, reader, is you need to set aside a little time between now and Nov. 4… more

Shannon Brownlee in Cherokee Scout (SC) | 'A Senior Moment: They're draining us with care'

Communications — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:15:00 -0400

New America in the News:

We may be hurting or even killing ourselves with too much health care. That’s according to a study by Dr. Elliot Fisher, a noted Dartmouth researcher.

In an article by Shannon Brownlee, the author of “Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer,” in AARP, The Magazine, Fisher stated that in his study he found that as many as 30,000 people on Medicare died annually due to unnecessary care.

Brownlee believes doctors are giving us too much care… more

Shannon Brownlee on WSCH6-TV Portland | 'Book Discussion: 'Overtreated''

Communications — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:34:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Shannon Brownlee discusses her new book Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker And Poorer on NBC affiliate WSCH6. LINK to video

Naming Names: Is There an (Unbiased) Doctor in the House?

Articles — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:29:00 -0400

Journalists often forget that conflicts of interest may bias the opinions of their expert sources. Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee explain how, in an attempt to disentangle commercial messages from science, they have compiled a list of nearly 100 independent medical experts to whom reporters can turn.

Ho hum, another medical scandal in the news. Earlier this month US Senator Chuck Grassley announced his intention to investigate Alan Schatzberg, chairman of the psychiatry department at Stanford University and the incoming president of the American Psychiatric Association, about his… more

Why Does Health Care Cost So Much?

Articles — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:41:00 -0400

Sandy and Charlie Murphy never imagined that paying for health care could put everything they owned at risk.

In 2002 the Murphys and their two sons were living a comfortable middle-class life in Scottsdale, Arizona, where Charlie, now 59, worked as a manager for Charles Schwab and where Sandy, now 60, was a part-time child advocate for the state. Then, in rapid succession, Charlie got laid off; Sandy quit to care for a son with health problems; Charlie discovered that his new employer set a $100,000 cap… more

Shannon Brownlee in the Indianapolis Star | 'One Drug, Many Uses. Good idea?'

Communications — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:34:00 -0400

New America in the News:

..."I think the question is, should one drug compound do so much?" said Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.

"This is a drug that may have a really serious side effect called suicide," Brownlee said. "Don't we have other drugs available that are safer and just as effective for such things as the management of chronic knee and low back pain?"... LINK

Shannon Brownlee in Ledger-Inquirer | 'What's Behind Medical Costs?'

Communications — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:30:00 -0400

New America in the News:

When campaigning for the presidency was hot and heavy, the hopefuls constantly reminded us of the high cost of health care. If we are to believe what we are told, the uninsured are making health care costs for the rest of us skyrocket.

Not so, according to Shannon Brownlee. The only people currently using the health care system are those who have insurance. So, if more people have insurance, more people will get health care treatment, she said.

In April, Brownlee spoke at a health and medical news conference, the… more

Shannon Brownlee in Chicago Tribune | 'High Cost of Unnecessary Treatment'

Communications — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:41:00 -0400

New America in the News:

...[T]he best here is medical journalist Shannon Brownlee's argument that health care is screwed up not because we don't ration care like Canada; or that malpractice lawsuits are to blame; or that absurd administrative costs raise insurance costs; or that consumers don't shop wisely since we often don't pay out of pocket.

No, she contends that over-treatment is to blame not only for high costs but for often making us more sick, suggesting we spend $500 billion a year on unnecessary… more

Shannon Brownlee in Telegraph-Journal | 'Are There Too Many Doctors?'

Communications — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:17:00 -0400

New America in the News:

...Writing in the December, 2007 Atlantic Monthly, Medical journalist Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker And Poorer (Bloomsbury Press 2007), notes that U.S. medical schools are planning to boost the number of new doctors being graduated annually by 30 per cent from 2002 levels over the next eight years...

Brownlee says the problematical issues are essentially two: new physicians tend to congregate in affluent communities offering a "high quality of life," in other words, places already served by… more

Shannon Brownlee in U.S. News & World Report | 'A Different Way of Ranking Hospitals'

Communications — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:34:00 -0400

New America in the News:

...[The ratings] seem to me less a consumer tool than a prod to the public consciousness. They send a message of great and expensive imbalance, that part of our national healthcare problem, as Shannon Brownlee writes in her recent book, Overtreated, is the enormous weight of care that is simply unnecessary. LINK

Stealth Marketers

Ron Tang — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:11:00 -0400

The radio show, which was broadcast nationwide and paid for in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur… more

Shannon Brownlee in San Jose Mercury News | UCSC Grad Winning Kudos for 'Overtreated'

Communications — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:33:00 -0400

New America in the News:

San Jose Mercury News | UCSC Grad Winning Kudos for 'Overtreated', A Health Care System Critique

Spending more on health care can be bad for our health, according to Shannon Brownlee, an award-winning medical journalist and UC Santa Cruz graduate who has earned widespread kudos for her book about the nation's sprawling health care system.

In "Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer," Brownlee challenges common medical practices. She depicts an uneven… more

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Ron Tang — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:09:00 -0400

Do you want to Google your genes or peer into your future risks of heart disease or cancer? Now you can, according to direct to consumer testing companies. Gone are the days when genetic testing was limited to doctors ordering tests for rare, but prognostically potent, single gene disorders such as Huntington’s disease, Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, or cystic fibrosis. Thanks to an explosion of newly discovered single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (pronounced snips), companies are marketing genetic tests for traits… more

Big Pharma's Golden Eggs

Ron Tang — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 05:25:00 -0400

Once upon a time there was an industry called pharma that was interested in doing well and doing good. Run by doctors and chemists, drug companies employed battalions of researchers whose scientific efforts resulted by mid-century in a flood of life-saving drugs, including antibiotics, vaccines, tranquilizers, antihistamines and steroids. As George Merck, president of the company founded by his father, put it in 1950, "We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the… more

Let's Stop Running Scared

Ron Tang — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 06:49:00 -0400

Felt a little short of breath the other day, walking up a hill. Uh-oh. A nugget of worry lodged for a moment in my mind. At 50-something, I'm in decent enough shape. I don't smoke. I walk several miles most days, and I can still beat my 40-something friend at tennis. Not exactly a candidate for a heart attack. But still. I've read all those stories about women like me, the ones with no risk factors for cardiac disease who… more