Medicine
revere | November 16, 2009We were asked repeatedly offline and in the comments for our views on what was or was not going on in the Ukraine, but we steadfastly declined to post on it. We didn't know any more than you can find out from news sources, so we had nothing to add in the way of hard information, We did know there was a WHO team on the ground and we thought it best to wait to find out more. We still don't know much, except that news reports are suggesting that the health care system in the Ukraine is a shambles and its likely the chaos and panic were self-inflicted more than virally inflicted. Mike Coston over…
terrasig | November 15, 2009
On Friday, I wrote a post about the 20th anniversary of my PhD dissertation defense and my reverence for Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cervical cancer gave rise to the first immortalized human cell line and the primary system for my work. I also alluded to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the upcoming book by Rebecca Skloot that is already garnering extensive pre-release praise.
I was, as readers have come to expect, quite a bit sentimental and reflective, with a call that we all do our part to somehow acknowledge those patients whose tissues make it possible for us scientists to do…
gregladen | November 14, 2009The "statins" make up a class of cholesterol lowering drugs. Fish oil (oil derived from fish) is rich in certain fatty acids. Both types of compounds can have powerful positive and protective effects in the brain.
a repost
A study just now coming out (to be published in Brain Research Reviews) looks at the biochemical effects of statins and fish oil in the brain in detail. The study makes specific recommendations for further research, and concludes with a proposal that the way we classify certain neural pathologies be reconsidered to take into account the complex biochemical pathways that…
palmd | November 14, 2009An easy way to kill a debate on health care policy is to use the "R" word. We saw this early in the HCR debate with overheated talk of "death panels" and other nonsense. But we ignore the real issue of rationing at our own peril. Those of us who favor real HCR must embrace rationing, coopt it, show our opponents how it is inevitable.
Nowhere is the the Right more hypocritical than the issue of health care rationing (OK, maybe with sex stuff, but...). Everyone who studies American health care knows that we already ration; we just do it irrationally. Current rationing allocates resources…
oracknows | November 13, 2009
Things have been getting a bit serious around here. Of course, there's been a lot to get serious about, what with Suzanne Somers promoting cancer quackery, Generation Rescue exploiting a young woman with problems in order to promote its anti-vaccine agenda (leading to my "friend" J.B. Handley launching yet another hilariously off-base love letter to me), and my ruminations on the disappointment of cancer screening, things have gotten heavy to the point where they may be a bit of a downer. Add to that the fact that over the last week we've had one of the most persistent and annoying…
clock | November 13, 2009There are 17 new articles published yesterday and 24 new articles today in PLoS ONE. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Norwegian Physicians' Knowledge of and Opinions about Evidence-Based Medicine: Cross-Sectional Study:
Objective
To answer five research questions: Do Norwegian…
cortex | November 10, 2009David Dobbs has a fantastic new article on behavioral genetics at The Atlantic. He adds an important amendment to the vulnerability hypothesis, which holds that certain genes make people more vulnerable to psychiatric disorders. While these snippets of DNA aren't deterministic per se, when they are combined with traumatic childhood events, or a stressful few months, they can lead to serious mental illness. It's the old genes plus environment story, and it's typically cast in a negative light. But Dobbs finds that the vulnerability hypothesis comes with a positive (and often overlooked) flip-…
cwilcox | November 10, 2009Sci-Fi authors will tell you that the next big breakthrough in medical technology will be the ability to grow our own organs for transplants. In the idealized future, you'll have a heart or kidney cultured from your own cells on hand for whatever emergency might come up. Well, scientists have taken another step closer to creating functional replacement tissues, detailing the creation fully-functional penis part replacements in rabbits in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. .
Yes, I did say penis part replacements. They are serious. Hey, if you're…
revere | November 9, 2009We only just got to the surgical/N95 mask article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). We've been traveling and haven't been able to keep up with what others were saying, but we're sure it's been well covered by the usual suspects. So we'll just add our take here, for what it's worth.
As most readers here know, what kind of mask (if any) will best protect a health care worker or anyone else at high risk of exposure to people infected with influenza virus is a difficult question. We still remain unsure whether flu is transmitted mainly by large or small droplets. If most…
pharyngula | November 7, 2009The concern trolls are very concerned. They are responding to my posting of Sonia/Tanja/Rosa/Whoevera Jensen's crazy email — she's disabled! She's mentally ill! It's cruel to post her wacky screeds publicly where people will point and laugh! You're picking on her! <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE SONIA ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>
No.
Crazy people — and I don't mean clinically ill people who need medical/psychiatric help — are everywhere, and they are saying and doing stupid things, and they are sending their nonsense to me, and they are engaging in their foolishness in public places where they…
oracknows | November 6, 2009Remember how I promised that I'd do my next installment of my blogging Suzanne Somers' pile of idiocy, namely her own book, before the end of the week?
Plans change, and neurons melt, which they did in response to reading the first several chapters of Suzanne Somers' book.
Don't worry, though. I'll definitely try to get back on track with my--shall we say?--extended multipart review by Monday. Sometimes, though, when you're blogging, news drives what you do, and news is driving my decision to forego the pleasure and pain of the next installment of my "fun with Suzanne Somers" series, at least…
revere | November 5, 2009For somebody so out to lunch on so many issues there is something undeniably likable about Ron Paul. As congressthings, he and Dennis Kucinich (there's an odd couple) had the clearest and best positions on the Iraq debacle. And as a principled libertarian (there seem to be some big chinks in Paul's libertarian armor -- like reproductive choice -- but his passion is undeniable), there is something admirable about him. It almost makes you forget his principles are self-centered, wrong-headed and inhumane. Little gnome-like figures aren't supposed to be that unfeeling toward others. Anti-science…
palmd | November 4, 2009As I've written before, the placebo effect is a rather messy phenomenon. It usually refers to the difference in outcomes in a study that are not due to the intervention but to multiple other variables associated with being in a study. More colloquially, "placebo" often means a positive effect seen from the administration of a biologically inert substance. There's a bit of a buzz brewing about a recent brief communication in Science. The report used fMRI to look for physiologic correlates to pain responses that were attenuated by an inert substance. (For the purposes of this discussion, I'…
clock | November 4, 2009Dog Genome: Teaching Scientists New Tricks
November 17th; 6:30-8:30 pm with discussion beginning at 7:00 followed by Q&A
The Irregardless Café, 901 W. Morgan Street, Raleigh 919.833.8898
This year, roughly 66,000 people will be diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, while another 22,000 will be diagnosed with cancers of the brain. In parallel, our pet dogs also suffer from a range of similar spontaneous cancers. For thousands of years, humans and dogs have shared a unique bond--breathing the same air, drinking the same water, and living in the same environment. During the 21st century…
gregladen | November 3, 2009The current health care reform bill(s) do not address actual health care ... like what procedures to use and stuff ... as much as they address insurance. This is a health insurance reform bill, not a health care system reform bill. (Though there is necessarily overlap.) Nonetheless Republican Wingnuts want a provision regarding prayer as a methods of treatment. Insurance companies would be required to cover prayer treatments:
a little-noticed provision in the health care overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.
The…
revere | November 3, 2009A reader asked an offline question that is general enough to post about (NB: I try to respond to as many questions as I can, but I'm traveling and can't keep up, so in most cases I won't be able to respond. I also don't hand out personal medical advice over the internet, something I consider bad practice). CDC says on the basis of clinical trials with the unadjuvanted vaccine used in the US that two shots, 21 days apart, are needed for children under 10. WHO, on the other hand, is telling its member nations that one will suffice. Why the confusion?
We may be comparing apples and oranges. Many…
revere | October 30, 2009One frequently hears claims that the current swine flu pandemic has been exaggerated because there are "only" 1000 or so deaths, while seasonal flu is estimated to contribute to tens of thousands of deaths a year. There are two reasons why this is not an apt comparison. We've discussed both here fairly often. The first is that the epidemiology of a pandemic and seasonal flu are very different. Epidemiology studies the patterns of disease in the population and swine flu is hitting -- and killing -- a very different demographic from seasonal flu. Its victims are young and many are vigorous and…
clock | October 29, 2009If you follow me on Twitter or peruse the links in my daily Tweetlinks summaries, you may have noticed I posted several links to a new Collection at PLoS. This one is not a PLoS ONE Collection, but a PLoS-wide one, spanning six of the seven journals in the house.
The Collection Genomics of Emerging Infectious Disease, was compiled by Jonathan A. Eisen (who you probably know from his excellent blog), the Academic Editor-in-Chief at PLoS Biology.
Jonathan, together with PLoS Biology Senior Editor Catriona J. MacCallum, wrote the introductory editorial explaining what the Collection is about and…
mikethemadbiologist | October 28, 2009Before I get to the horrendous Atlantic article about vaccination, it's worth reviewing the Mad Biologist's Pentultimate Postulate of Vaccination (What? You don't know it?):
Effective vaccination is not about protecting you, it's about protecting other people from you.
To put it another way, the best way for you not to get influenza is to not come into contact with people who have it--and standing next to a vaccinated person dramatically decreases those odds.
So onto the PCV7 vaccine.
The PCV7 vaccine confers immunity to the seven most common types of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium…
oracknows | October 22, 2009Before I move on for a while from the topic of that faded 1970s comic actress, Suzanne Somers, whose latest book is a paean to cancer quackery and who has been carpetbombing the airwaves with burning napalm stupid, I think one revelation is worth a brief mention. Specifically, after my post about how I find Somers' story about being misdiagnosed with cancer, a fan wrote:
Orac,
Sarcoidosis? Nope. Wrong again. Suzanne admitted on TV she had an acute pulmonary fungal infection, valley fever. Try going back to medical school, you mental midget.
I do so love the adoration of my fans. However, it…