All the Nags from 2012

JANUARY 2012

• Painkiller overdose deaths top those from heroin and cocaine
• Short vs long articles online: which are better?
• Why I’d never make it as a Japanese mother
• Should we stop calling it prostate “cancer”?
• “Fotoshop by Adobé” – all you need to look like a supermodel
• “Never Liked It Anyway”: online garage sale meets self-help aisle
• Miss Representation: how women are portrayed in the media
• Waiter’s phony $10 tip includes a religious lesson

FEBRUARY 2012

• Yogurt: what else could a woman possibly need?
• Is medicine “just plumbing with more expensive tools?”
• FDA panel that approved Yaz and Yasmin had ties with industry
• What’s in a (paint chip) name? ‘Romance’ or ‘Duct Tape Light’
• Big Pharma, are you ready for your close-up?
• Men in film: the morphing movie star face
• How marketers target your children with treats

MARCH 2012

• How much sugar is in that can of Coke?
• The New Therapeutics: 10 Commandments
• How many of these 20 advertising slogans can you complete?
• “Substantially Unsafe”:  30 disturbing facts about medical devices
• More vintage ads we’re not likely to ever see again
• The myth of osteoporosis: blowing the whistle on the “epidemic”
• Seven diseases Big Pharma hopes you get in 2012
• Doctors behaving badly online: how stupidity can cause trouble

APRIL 2012

• Why men buy, but women shop
• Warning, doctors: it’s the age of the ‘Super Loss’ malpractice suit
• The Hummer House
• Is your life as awesome as you pretend it is on Facebook?
• The alcohol industry’s “alcopop” strategy hooks underage drinkers
• Why do doctors call it “practice variation” instead of poor care?
• Texting shortcuts for Boomers

MAY 2012

• The cardiac polypill: why are we still talking about this?
• Dr. Sherry Turkle: “I share, therefore I am”
• Who’s running the show in industry-sponsored drug trials?
• The Quantified Self meets The Urban Datasexual
• Handy hints for getting along with your drug company
• Should you take anti-depressants – and if so, which one?
• Anti-gay? Anti-Jew? Anti-Muslim? It’s those atheists we trust least
• The mob mentality revisited
  

JUNE 2012

• Absolute risk, relative risk – and red meat
• Today’s random medical news:  “___ can cause ___ in ___”
• Why certainty of punishment is the best crime deterrent
• When the stigma of a disease makes its diagnosis even worse
• “I’m not a real doctor – but I play one on drug ads”
• How to Tell What The Weather’s Like Today
• Penn State’s PR train wreck
• Big Tobacco’s lessons for Big Food

JULY 2012

• Selling Cinderella to our daughters
• And more vintage ads we’ll never see again
• The mental health perils of travelling abroad
• What fruits would say if they were human
• More myths about the Olympic Games
• A philosopher’s take on Big Pharma marketing
• When the cover-up is almost as despicable as the crime

AUGUST 2012

• Drug company uses movie promotion to target your kids
• “McStatins” with your burger and fries?
• Deceptive drug ads on TV
• Big Pharma’s powerful powers of persuasion
• 8 health foods that aren’t healthy
• Diet Coke: the world’s “liquid crack of choice”
• Medical quackery revisited
• Farewell to a beloved old friend

SEPTEMBER 2012

• The Ethical Nag celebrates our third anniversary!
• Martian report: “There is life on earth!”
• The Catholic hierarchy: a safe haven for predator priests
• “Best book I’ve ever read!” Rave reviews for sale
• What did Jesus drive?
• Defiant tanning industry attacks doctors’ warnings
• Medical journals: “information-laundering for Big Pharma”?
• How drug companies get the clinical trial results they want

OCTOBER 2012

• The tarnished reputation of university research
• 10 tips: Social Media Highway Code for doctors
• And even more vintage ads we’ll never see again
• Has industry co-opted patient engagement?
• When doctors don’t want to practice medicine
• How the Gartner Hype Cycle is like marriage
• Surgeons make millions on Medtronic payroll

NOVEMBER 2012

• The missing link in chronic disease care
• Guess which smartphone your doctor carries?
• Aspartame is bad – ooops! Never mind!
• Why patients hate the C-word
• Smartphones make Top 10 Health Tech Hazards list
• Buy Nothing Day: Can you stop buying for just one day?
• The ads of Dr. Seuss: Horton Hatches An Ad

DECEMBER 2012

• What’s a “paraprosdokian”?
• Texting at funerals
• How we get persuaded to do stuff we don’t even want to do
• Top 10 Nags of 2012 from The Ethical Nag

.

Return to this year’s Nags, or

Visit the dark, dank, scary archives of all Ethical Nag posts:

• 2009
• 2010
• 2011
• 2013
• 2014