Medicine
jdupuis | September 1, 2010Yes, YASBC. Yet another science blogging community.
Welcome to PLoS Blogs!
From the introductory post:
Today we are pleased to announce the launch of PLoS Blogs a new network for discussing science in public; covering topics in research, culture, and publishing.
PLoS Blogs is different from other blogging networks, because it includes an equal mix of science journalists and scientists. We're excited to be welcoming our new bloggers, including Pulitzer Prize winner Deborah Blum to the network.
*snip*
Our scientists:
Take As Directed:
David Kroll, Ph.D. is a cancer pharmacologist who…
lborkowski | August 31, 2010
New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a monthly feature produced by the journal New Solutions. Read more about it here.
By Anne Fischel and Lin Nelson
We write to you as teachers and researchers concerned about the environmental and occupational health hazards impacting communities living and working in mining sites across North America and the world.
Through our project, "No Borders: Communities Living and Working with Asarco," we have spent the last 5 years looking at those affected by and affecting the work of the Asarco corporation, one of the oldest and largest mining, smelting and…
neurophilosophy | August 30, 2010This post is part of a Nature Blog Focus on hallucinogenic drugs in medicine and mental health, inspired by a recent Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper, The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders, by Franz Vollenweider & Michael Kometer. This article will be freely available, with registration, until September 23. See the Table of Contents for more information on this Blog Focus, and read the other blog posts:
Serotonin, Psychedelics and Depression (by Neuroskeptic)
Ketamine for Depression: Yay or Neigh? (by The Neurocritic)
Visions of a…
oracknows | August 25, 2010What the hell is going on with The New York Times' health reporting?
I've had my share of disagreements with the way that the NYT has covered various health issues over the years that I've been blogging, but I don't recall ever having seen it embrace pseudoscience. I can recall being a bit miffed at some of the articles that the NYT has published about biomedical research and its various perceived failings. On the other hand, I've also praised the NYT reporting on various issues, such as medical radiation and the risks it can pose. But lately, it seems, the NYT has gone into the crapper with…
egrossman | August 23, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
On August 17th the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) held the first public discussion of plans for its Gulf Worker Study - also called the Gulf Long Term Follow-up Study - designed to assess short and long-term health effects associated with BP/Deepwater Horizon oil disaster clean-up work. "Since the spill," said NIEHS director Linda Birnbaum opening the meeting, "NIEHS has assisted with safety training for more than 100,000 workers with courses taught in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. But now it's time to turn our attention to the potential…
gregladen | August 13, 2010After I reported this recent and interesting research paper about urinary tract inflictions, a number of conversations broke out on that post, on my facebook page, and via email, and some of these conversations raised the question of cranberry juice and whether the idea that it prevents, reduces, or shortens the duration of UTIs is real or woo.
Added: After further discussion elsewhere, I would like to clarify what is being asked here: Imagine you are a person who drinks apple juice and cranberry juice as your main hydrating substance. Also, you are are a person who is concerned with…
dgmacarthur | August 5, 2010Two days ago I reported a rumour that the FDA might have convinced genotyping chip provider Illumina to stop providing its products to direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies - a move that would effectively prevent these companies from being able to operate.
The rumour seemed plausible at the time, based on two pieces of evidence. Firstly, a letter sent to Illumina by the FDA in June warned the company that the use of its chips by personal genomics companies appeared to violate FDA regulations:
Although Illumina, Inc. has received FDA clearance or approval for several of its devices,…
oracknows | August 5, 2010I hate science press releases.
Well, not exactly. I hate science press releases that hype a study beyond its importance. I hate it even more when the investigators who published the study make statements not justified by the study and use the study as a jumping off point to speculate wildly. True, it's not always the fault of the investigators, particularly if they don't have much experience dealing with the press, but all too often scientists fall prey to the tendency to gab glibly and give the reporter what he or she wants: Pithy, juicy quotes that relate the results to what the reporter…
pharyngula | August 4, 2010
I have no idea how this stuff gets published. I've been sent a new paper that tests the effect of prayer, and I was appalled: it's got such deep methodological problems that nothing can be concluded from it, but that doesn't stop the authors, who argue that they're seeing that Proximal Intercessory Prayer improves vision and hearing in people in Mozambique.Proximal Intercessory Prayer (PIP) is their very own term for what they do, to distinguish it from distant prayer. What is it, you may ask? Here is their protocol.
Western and Mozambican Iris and Global Awakening [two evangelical/…
dgmacarthur | July 30, 2010This week was pretty hectic, so there were plenty of useful or interesting links from the personal genomics world that I didn't have time to write about in detail. Feel free to share your own suggestions in the comments.
Responses to the Congress/FDA crack-downAs all of you will be aware, the big news this week revolved around the debate over the regulatory future of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing industry, following a brutal Congressional hearing into the industry last Thursday that featured a scathing report by the US Government Accountability Office.
Over at Genomes Unzipped…
dgmacarthur | July 29, 2010(This is an edited excerpt from an op-ed piece I just wrote for Xconomy, posted here as I think it provides some nuance on my views on regulation of genetic testing that was lacking from my post last week.
Some context for new readers: a Congressional investigation into the direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing industry last week left a sour taste in the mouths of many observers of the embryonic industry; it was a vicious, one-sided affair, starring a biased report on a "sting" operation performed by the US Government Accountability Office. Along with other recent moves by the FDA, it…
mikethemadbiologist | July 27, 2010So, in some quarters, there's been wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Congressional hearings about the direct-to-customer ('DTC') genetic testing industry. I've discussed why I don't think regulation is a disaster before, but I'll add one more issue to the mix: maintaining subject confidentiality in NIH genomic studies. If someone related to a person in a study publicly releases his or her genome, it could be possible to identify a 'deidentified' anonymous subject. I'm curious to see how that issue shakes out.
But that's not what this post is about. Instead, I propose that the DTC…
pharyngula | July 27, 2010Alayna Wyland is 7 months old, and she is suffering.
The area started swelling, and the fast-growing mass of blood vessels, known as a hemangioma, eventually caused her eye to swell shut and pushed the eyeball down and outward and started eroding the eye socket bone around the eye.
There are pictures at the link. It's not pretty. I know if my babies had a growth that was almost the size of a tennis ball that was destroying their face, I'd have been camped out at the hospital. But not Alayna's parents! They have a special treatment plan.
The Wylands and their church reject medical care in…
oracknows | July 27, 2010About three weeks ago, fresh after having experienced my own attack by anti-vaccine activists who tried to get me fired, I noticed that Doctors Data was doing what cranks and crank organizations can't resist doing when they face scientific criticism, namely to lash out. Such lashing out can take many forms. In my case, as I mentioned, the cranks were the anti-vaccine loons at Age of Autism, and the attack consisted of an e-mail campaign against me to the board of directors of my university. To Dr. Barrett, who, thanks to his many more years taking on medical pseudoscience than I, is far more…
oracknows | July 26, 2010Note: Parts of this post have appeared elsewhere, but not in this form.
If there's one aspect of so-called "alternative medicine" and "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) is that its practitioners tout as being a huge advantage over what they often refer to sneeringly as "conventional" or "scientific" medicine is that -- or so its practitioners claim -- alt-med treats the "whole patient," that it's "wholistic" in a way that the evil reductionist "Western" science-based medicine can't be. Supposedly, we reductionistic, unimaginative physicians only focus on disease and ignore the "…
mikethemadbiologist | July 23, 2010Imagine someone had designed a device that would essentially eliminate bloodstream infections (sepsis) caused by contamination of needleless injection ports. Great news right? Well, guess what happens next:
Unlike some of the solutions floated by big medical device makers, such as coating the ports with silver, Shaw's innovation added only a few pennies to the cost of production. And it seemed to be remarkably effective: a 2007 clinical study funded by Shaw's company and conducted by the independent SGS Laboratories found the device prevented germs from being transferred to catheters…
oracknows | July 22, 2010As you may have heard, the strike is over. That doesn't mean the crisis is over, nor does it necessarily mean that I will be staying with ScienceBlogs, but I view management's response as a positive move that may be enough to keep me here. Now management needs to lose the Google ads for quackery, and then we have something to talk about. It seems that every time our benevolent overlords kill one set of quack ads, they disappear for a short while, only to reappear in a different guise. I think they understand that. At least I hope so.
In the meantime, I will speak no further of these issues,…
cmonforton | July 16, 2010In an amazing and comprehensive report entitled "Picked Apart," the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante and the International Human Rights Law Clinic of American University College of Law reveal the ugly, dark side of the Maryland crab industry. Some employers are skirting the law and exploiting workers hired under the H2-B guestworker program. Many of these workers are women from Mexico who've traveled thousands of miles in a bus to remote villages on Maryland's eastern shore. They'll work during the Blue crab harvesting season, to pick the meat by hand. The H2-B program allows employers…
palmd | July 12, 2010Yes, this is a repost, sort of. I first put this up on denialism blog in December of 2008. For various reasons, I haven't had a chance to crank out anything fresh this weekend, but this is still a good one, and I've edited it to freshen it up a bit, so don't complain until you read it. --PalMD
It's July again, and that means I have a crop of new interns. I love new interns, because every topic is fresh, every moment a teaching moment. I'm sobered by the statistic that predicts that only about 4% of American medical grads will chose primary care, but even when I work with the…
terrasig | July 8, 2010Toxicity reports are re-emerging in southern California this week after a dozen hospitalizations of kids using teas made from a fragrant flowering plant called Angel's Trumpet. A tea made from the plants is used to produce hallucinations, but they can progress to extremely unpleasant experiences. Moreover, Angel's Trumpet can be deadly, accelerating the heart rate and causing fatal cardiac rhythmic disturbances and bronchoconstriction that can trigger asthma attacks in sensitive individuals.
Angel's Trumpet is one of a series of plants in the Brugmansia genus that make a variety of muscarinic…