Medicine
clock | September 5, 2008NC State Is First University in Nation to Offer Canine Bone Marrow Transplants
Dogs suffering from lymphoma will be able to receive the same type of medical treatment as their human counterparts, as North Carolina State University becomes the first university in the nation to offer canine bone marrow transplants in a clinical setting.
Dr. Steven Suter, assistant professor of oncology in NC State's College of Veterinary Medicine, received three leukophoresis machines donated by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Leukophoresis machines are designed to harvest healthy stem cells from cancer…
oracknows | September 5, 2008I've railed on more than one occasion about how much I detest science by press release. For one thing, it bypasses the peer review process and reports results directly to the public, which to me is a strike against any study. Indeed, releasing results by press release or using a press release to tout a study before it's even published is, as far as I'm concerned, quite dubious, and when I see it I'm automatically way more suspicious of whether the study represents good (or even OK) science.
One form of science by press release that can be a bit more subtle than, say, the cold fusion guys…
oracknows | September 3, 2008This is getting to be monotonous, but it's a monotony that I like, as should anyone who supports scientific medicine and hates the resurgence of infectious diseases that antivaccinationists have been causing of late with their fearmongering about vaccines that frightens parents into refusing to vaccinate their children. It's the drumbeat of studies, seemingly coming out every few months, that fail to find even a whiff of a link or correlation between vaccines, thimerosal-containing or otherwise, and autism. You'd think that the pseudoscientists who are so utterly convinced that it absolutely…
terrasig | September 3, 2008You are an assistant professor in the biomedical sciences and are three or four years in, trying to really hammer on your productivity before the tenure dossier goes in a couple of years from now. Professor MegaMentor, editor of your society's second-tier journal (impact factor of 2.5), approaches you to write an invited review article on the state of your field. You take a look at the promotion and tenure guidelines for your institution and find that review articles are not counted as "original, peer-reviewed research publications."
Professor MegaMentor has been very good to you since she…
revere | September 3, 2008This is another in our Daily Dose of Sarah Palin, because even if John McCain didn't think it was that important to learn a lot about the person who might be the next President should some medical event befall the 72 year old cancer survivor who would occupy the position should he be elected, most people want more information. Previous installments here. What we see is that Palin is a perfect fit for the most extreme right wing Republican platform in that party's history.
I'm not interested in Sarah Palin's family joys and sorrows. Not my business. But I am interested in her version of…
oracknows | September 3, 2008Some people should keep their "gut feelings" to themselves.
You know the type: People who have no knowledge about a topic or, even worse, just enough knowledge to sound as if they have a clue about it to people who don't have a clue but who are at the same time easily spotted as utterly and completely clueless by people who do have a clue. These people often think they've discovered something that scientists, in all their blindness have missed, and have a burning urge to share their "gut feeling" about what they think they have discovered as though it's some revelation, a bolt out of the blue…
mikethemadbiologist | September 2, 2008A recent, must-read article for anyone concerned about the problem of misuse of antibiotics to treat viral bronchitis, not to mention anyone who prescribes antibiotics, was recently published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The short version: giving patients antibiotics to treat viral pneumonia is dangerous for the patients themselves (never mind the evolutionary consequences of increasing resistance).
Since antibiotics are almost never effective against bronchitis, the prescribing rate should be nearly zero, but in the U.S., 67% of adults with acute bronchitis received antibiotic therapy…
oracknows | September 2, 2008Hanging out last night, the final night of a three day holiday weekend, I was momentarily at a loss for what to write. For one thing, having spent a good chunk of the last three days unpacking the remaining stuff we've had in our basement in boxes for the last six or seven months, my wife and I had a pretty good sense of accomplishment but not a lot of energy left. So much for one of my analyses of a study or a medical issue.
I was also half-tempted to go back and listen again to the Science Friday last week because the antivaccinationist named Chantal who called in at the end was a perfect…
sb admin | August 29, 2008Bloggers give us the dirt on the VP picks announced this week. Thereâs already info on McCainâs running mate, Sarah Palin:
Gristmill gives us a snapshot of Palinâs record on energy and environmental issues, and compiles statements from and about her on these topics.
Keith Johnson at Environmental Capital focuses on her position on expanding oil drilling.
Jacob Goldstein at WSJâs Health Blog brings us her views on regulation and competition for hospitals and clinics.
And even more on Obamaâs VP choice, Joe Biden:
Scientists and Engineers for America Action Fund highlights Bidenâs views on…
oracknows | August 28, 2008Believe it or not, there was one area of so-called "alternative" medicine that I used to be a lot less skeptical about than I am now. Homeopathy, I always realized to be a load of pseudoscientific magical thinking. Ditto reiki, therapeutic touch, and other forms of "energy healing." It didn't take an extensive review of the literature to figure that out, although I did ultimately end up doing fairly extensive literature reviews anyway. Then, the more I looked into the hodge-podge of "healing" modalities whose basis is not science but rather prescientific and often mystical thought, the less…
oracknows | August 26, 2008Yesterday, I was annoyed by a particularly vile article by quackery promoter supreme Mike Adams claiming that Christina Applegate didn't need a bilateral mastectomy and could have "cured" herself of cancer with "natural" methods. Indeed, my contempt for Mike Adams knows no bounds, given that he is the purveyor of a seemingly never-ending stream of antiscience and quackery, much of it directed at cancer patients, who if they follow Adams' "advice" could very well miss their best chance at treating their cancer and thereby wind up dead. Indeed, so great is the amount of quackery emanating from…
revere | August 26, 2008It's Presidential politics time, so here's something to think about: the threat to the health of women. In my early medical career I spent some time running down to emergency rooms to meet women bleeding out from botched illegal abortions. That wasn't so long ago, although most people have no idea what those days were like. I worry that under a McCain presidency they'll get a chance to find out. At the McCain Women's Clinic:
sciencewoman | August 23, 2008Over at FairerScience they are looking for a Clinical/Social Science Research Associate to work on a project about "Career Decision-Making of Future Minority Biomedical Science Faculty." Here's an excerpt of the job description:
This new position is responsible for the coordination and management of a national, interview-based research study of the career decision-making processes of undergraduates in the sciences and biomedical PhD students. In addition to managing the study, there will be opportunity for the individual to participate in analysis of interview data and conduct of phone…
clock | August 22, 2008There are 7 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Bioactive Endophytes Warrant Intensified Exploration and Conservation:
A key argument in favor of conserving biodiversity is that as yet undiscovered biodiversity will yield products of great use to humans. However, the link between undiscovered biodiversity and useful products is largely conjectural. Here we provide direct evidence from bioassays of…
neurophilosophy | August 21, 2008
In 2000, researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine made a surprising discovery that would start to change the way we think about the causes of depression. Ronald Duman and his colleagues chronically administered different classes of antidepressants to rats, and found that this stimulated the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus. As a result, researchers and clinicians began to think of depression as something like a mild neurodegenerative disorder, rather than as a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Earlier studies had already suggested that depression involves shrinkage of…
oracknows | August 21, 2008I must be slipping.
Well, not really. It doesn't bother me that blog bud and fellow skeptical physician PalMD beat me to an important publication that came out a couple of days ago in the Annals of Internal Medicine. I'm a surgeon and a translational/basic scientist; so Annals is not usually one of the journals I read regularly. I usually read individual studies as I find out about them referenced elsewhere, usually Eureka Alert! or when an Annals study sufficiently interesting to motivate me to surf on over to the website and download the article. Be that as it may, this article is highly…
clock | August 20, 2008There are 12 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Seeing without Seeing? Degraded Conscious Vision in a Blindsight Patient:
Blindsight patients, whose primary visual cortex is lesioned, exhibit preserved ability to discriminate visual stimuli presented in their "blind" field, yet report no visual awareness hereof. Blindsight is generally studied in experimental investigations of single patients, as very…
sb admin | August 20, 2008I've been having an internal debate about whether to write on this issue, not because it isn't interesting, not because it isn't important, but because it's getting so much coverage and I'm not sure how much I can add to the conversation.
But it so infuriated me that I must blog. Science-based medicine relies on medical evidence. It relies on being able to grade medical evidence by its quality and strength, and to do this, there must be a certain level of transparency.
I'm only a little bit idealistic. I know that drug companies must fund clinical trials if we ever want to see new drugs…
terrasig | August 20, 2008Many thanks to science and medical senior writer Cathy Arnst of BusinessWeek for the unexpected coverage online a couple of days ago in their Working Parents blog.
Ms Arnst cited Terra Sig and one of our previous posts in discussing the additional FTC settlement funds to be provided by the makers of Airborne for false claims to consumers:
For background on the charges against the product check out the informative blog terra sigillata, by a pharmacologist, which pulls apart false claims made on behalf of natural remedies (in fact, he pulls apart false medical claims in general--a blog worth…
sb admin | August 18, 2008Over the last few decades, the nature of medical knowledge has changed significantly. Before the revolution in evidence-based medicine, clinical medicine was practiced as more of an art (in the "artisan" sense). Individuals were treated empirically with a strong knowledge of medical biology, and the guidance of "The Giants", or particularly skilled and respected practitioners. While the opinions of skilled practitioners is still valued, EBM adds a new value---one of "show me the evidence".
Evidence-based medicine refers to the entire practice of gathering and applying medical knowledge.…