Variety post: cost studies, drug effectiveness, Cochrane, media coverage, causality

A few interesting things I've read lately...

• Some fairly effective strategies for finding cost studies in EMBASE: McKinlay RJ, Wilczynski NL, Haynes RB. Optimal search strategies for detecting cost and economic studies in EMBASE. BMC Health Services Research 2006; 6:67.
• Time course of drug effectiveness in separate studies over time -- evidence for decreasing effect?: Gehr BT, Weiss C, Porzsolt F. The fading of reported effectiveness. A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. BMC Medical Research Methodology 2006; 6:25.
• Methodological and reporting quality of Cochrane reviews: Shea BJ, Boers M, Grimshaw JM, Hamel CD, Bouter LM. Does updating improve the methodological and reporting quality of systematic reviews? BMC Medical Research Methodology 2006; 6:27.
• Problems with media coverage of data presented at scientific meetings: Woloshin S, Schwartz LM. Media reporting on research presented at scientific meetings: more caution needed. Med J Aust 2006; 184 (11): 576-580.
• When is it "right" to make causal inferences from the results of biomedical research?: Lipton R, Odegaard T. Causal thinking and causal language in epidemiology: it's in the details. Epidemiol Perspect Innov 2005; 2:8.