It has been an eventful few weeks, here are just a few things making a stir on social media…

Now that the election has ended, bloggers are offering their takes on the future of health care reform. Aaron Carroll gives his on  The JAMA Forum. The Kaiser Family Foundation has an interactive implementation timeline that allows users to view the roll-out of the law’s provisions by year and to filter by topic, a helpful tool for understanding this complex plan. Check out the timeline here. Continue reading →

Just some of this week’s social media excitement… saying no to ACS, what Open Access isn’t, considering cost in cancer care and more!

In an op-ed piece in the NY Times, three MSKCC doctors explained the decision to not include an expensive new treatment in the hospital formulary and encouraged others to consider cost as well as effectiveness when treating cancer patients. Many doctors were tweeting about the piece, and a short mention on the Washington Post’s Wonk Blog led to a number of comments (some very interesting). Over at FightColorectalCancer.org, there is a nice discussion of the piece and links to a number of responses around the web.

Another great post from Kevin Smith at Duke, clarifying What open access is not, and therefore touching on a number of important things about what it is, including the wide range of open access publishing models and the emerging field of Altmetrics.

SPARC has a story covering how one university is stepping away from a society publisher whose pricing model is unsustainable… SUNY Potsdam Takes Tough Stand Against American Chemistry Society Prices. Jenica Rodgers, librarian at SUNY Potsdam has blogged about the process as well.

The Washington Post reported that two major breast cancer charities have agreed to “best practices” to disclose information to consumers about what pink ribbon products benefit.

A big win last week for libraries and fair use advocates in the Hathi Trust case! A post from Library Babel Fish does a nice job of explaining the details and includes links to several other posts on the case, like this thorough explanation by Kevin Smith at Duke. Rebecca Rosen of the Atlantic also reported on the case.

Healthcare providers and patients should check out a post from October 2 (which I just came across via @Bangor Beacon), Does the Complexity of Shared Decisions Require More than Basic Health Literacy? by Stephen Kussin about health literacy and shared decisions. Kussin gives an overview of the issue and suggests useful resources for patients with various levels of health literacy.

US News reported on encouraging results from a very small study of a therapeutic vaccine for women who have already been infected with HPV.

And, in a breaking story on Friday from ScienceInsider, the entire scientific review council at the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) is stepping down, apparently due to problems with their peer review system. No doubt there will be more about this in the coming days.