Blog roundup
sb admin | May 25, 2007This week, bloggers had plenty to say regarding the new study raising safety questions about the diabetes drug Avandia. The Olive Ridley Crawl and Merrill Goozner at GoozNews emphasize the importance of transparency around clinical trials, while Cervantes at Stayinâ Alive explains whatâs wrong with using surrogate markers (as the Avandia studies used in the approval process did), and Roy M. Poses MD at Health Care Renewal explores the all-too-familiar elements of the drama.
Bloggers are also keeping an eye on Congressâs progress with the Farm Bill. Angry Toxicologist explains why we should…
sb admin | May 18, 2007With all the interesting new research coming out, itâs good that we have bloggers to help us stay on top of it all. The Olive Ridley Crawl explains the basics behind the reports on chemicals linked to breast cancer; Corpus Callosum looks at a Health Affairs article that helps put drug risks in perspective; Andrew Leonard at How the World Works highlights a paper on undocumented migrant berry pickers in the Pacific Northwest and Oaxaca; Kate Shepard at Gristmill summarizes new thinking on the long-cherished âthe dose makes the poisonâ idea; and Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily describes a study…
sb admin | May 11, 2007Several bloggers have been following the story of Julie MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary who oversaw the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serviceâs endangered species program and resigned in disgrace last week, after it was revealed that sheâd been giving industry lobbyists internal agency documents. GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life, James Hrynyshyn at Island of Doubt, and Andrew Leonard at How the World Works have details on this and other problematic MacDonald actions. The House Natural Resources Committee held a related hearing (âEndangered Species Act Implementation: Science…
sb admin | May 4, 2007I've been away from my computer for the past several days, so these links are all from the early part of the week:
Revere at Effect Measure reports that the situation at National Institute of Environmental Health Science is revealing more damage to federal science.
Jacob Goldstein at the WSJ Health Blog discusses the implications of a Supreme Court ruling on drug patents.
Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata wants to see more regulation of herbal products, but fears the FDA's new guidance on complementary and alternative medicine products might backfire.
Kate Sheppard at Gristmill has the…
sb admin | April 27, 2007Did you know that Wednesday was World Malaria Day? Farzaneh and Aman at Technology, Health & Development marked the occasion with posts about initiatives that are tackling the disease, while Merrill Goozner at GoozNews wonders why the World Banks seems to lack a sense of urgency on the issue.
Regular ScienceBlogs readers probably noticed that bloggersâ use of charts from scientific journals, and the larger issue of open scientific discourse, was a hot topic this week. It all started when Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle put up an informative post about a study recently published in the…
sb admin | April 20, 2007The FDA certainly wasnât the biggest newsmaker this week, but it did create some buzz in the blogosphere â mostly due to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA, which is up for Congressional reauthorization. Matt Madia at Reg Watch and Merrill Goozner at GoozNews are tracking PDUFAâs progress through the Senate. Corpus Callosum has three posts on three New England Journal of Medicine editorials about PDUFA (here, here, and here). (Weâve got Susan Woodâs take on the editorials here; or, check out all our PDUFA posts here.) The Olive Ridley Crawl reports that proposed restrictions on new-…
sb admin | April 13, 2007Revere at Effect Measure updates us on the medical communityâs latest plea for Libya to release the six health care workers unjustly sentenced to death for âdeliberately infectingâ children with HIV, and links to Physicians for Human Rightsâ campaign to get the U.S. government to exert more pressure on Libya to free the nurses and doctor. Time is running short: The Libyan Supreme Court may hear the health workersâ appeal as early as the end of the month.
The IPCC Working Group II published their âSummary for Policymakersâ on the impacts of climate change, and reports surfaced about…
sb admin | April 6, 2007The Supreme Courtâs decision in Massachusetts v. EPA was big news this week; Justin Pidot at Gristmill takes an in-depth look at the rulingâs implications, while Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog scrutinizes the stances of the parties opposing it. Then, of course, there was Bushâs recess appointment of Susan Dudley to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which Ian Hart at Integrity of Science describes as part of larger White House assault on science in policymaking.
At the state level, Lisa Stiffler at Dateline Earth notes that Washington State is the first in the nation to ban…
sb admin | March 30, 2007U.S. environmental regulations were on several bloggersâ minds this week. Frank OâDonnell at Blog for Clean Air explains that EPAâs new rule on particle soot is terrible, while Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority warns that Bush administration is about to release a set of administrative rules changes that would completely eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. At least The Olive Ridley Crawl has some good news: the National Marine Fisheries Service is proposing stronger regulations to reduce sea turtle bycatch.
Infectious diseases were a hot topic, too. Tara C. Smith at Aetiology…
sb admin | March 23, 2007Al Gore's appearance on Capitol Hill prompted several blog posts. David Roberts at Gristmill liveblogged Gore's testimony in both the House and the Senate; he and Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority both devoted blog posts to a memorable encounter between Gore and Senator Inhofe, too. Kevin Vranes at Prometheus weighed in on Gore's specific proposals and summarized exchanges between Gore and various Senators.
When the sad news about Elizabeth Edwardsâ cancer was reported, Orac at Respectful Insolence and Craig Hildreth at The Cheerful Oncologist were quick to provide additional…
sb admin | March 16, 2007William Broadâs NYT piece on Al Goreâs global warming science has been causing a stir in the blogosphere this week (original article here). Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate write, âIt is rather ironic then that William Broad's latest piece on Al Gore plays just as loose with [the facts] as he accuses Gore of doing;â David Roberts at Gristmill says itâs âthe worst, sloppiest, most dishonest piece of reporting I've ever seen in the NYT.â Tim Lambert at Deltoid faults Broad for failing to check out claims made by climate change skeptics and for misrepresenting scientific reports.…
sb admin | March 9, 2007One of the great things about the blogosphere is that even when several bloggers are writing about the same story, theyâre covering different angles. Here are a couple of examples of posts that complement our posts from the past week:
As a complement to Revereâs post on the FDAâs cefquinome decision, check out The Olive Ridley Crawl for a list of five reasons the approval is unnecessary and Mike the Mad Biologist to learn why cefepime-resistant salmonella is only the tip of an infection iceberg.
As a complement to David Michaelsâs post on antioxidants and cancer, learn how antioxidants might…
sb admin | March 2, 2007It looks like we're not the only ones scrutinizing the FDA. Merrill Goozner at GoozNews takes on the agency's prescription drug user fees, conflicted advisory committee members, and guidance for manufacturers, while Revere examines food safety and an experimental bird flu vaccine.
Also on the topic of pharmaceuticals, Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata reported that the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists has developed a policy recognizing pharmacists' right to decline to participate in therapies they find morally troubling. This set off a host of other posts: Janet Stemwedel at…
sb admin | February 23, 2007Pharmaceuticals seem to be a big topic in the blogosphere this week. Roy M. Poses MD at Health Care Renewal has more on the Zyprexa memos â which, if you havenât been following this issue, reportedly show that manufacturer Eli Lilly suppressed information about this schizophrenia drugâs harmful side effects. Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata reports on the perils of buying drugs online (and, in a post from last week, he worries about the number of people Googling DCA), and Orac at Respectful Insolence delves into the topic of experimental drug availability.
As has been the trend recently,…
sb admin | February 16, 2007Matt Madia at Reg Watch and Ian Hart at Integrity of Science report on the two House hearings held last week on how the new executive order will affect regulatory agencies. (See our take on the Science & Technology Committeeâs hearing here.)
In climate change blogging, Jim Hoggan at DeSmogBlog is critical of Canadaâs climate policy, but applauds a new policy statement from British Columbia; Matthew C. Nisbet at Framing Science has some advice on framing the issue; and Gavin at Real Climate invokes the popular TV show CSI to explain how paleo-climate research fits into our understanding of…
sb admin | February 9, 2007In addition to writing about the IPCC report itself, bloggers are dissecting the media and public responses to it. RealClimate wonders why the Wall Street Journalâs editorial board still has its head buried in the sand; Matthew C. Nisbet at Framing Science thought the report should have made more of a splash than it did; and David Roberts at Gristmill notes that there were some good print stories about the report, but public engagement on the issue is lacking.
Meanwhile, the US Congress is still holding hearings about political interference into the work of U.S. government scientists. Ian…
sb admin | February 2, 2007In addition to the blogging related to the IPCC (which will be getting its own post), this past week saw lots of discussion on the issue of open-access science journals, following the news that a group of big publishers opposed to open access had hired âthe pit bull of public relations,â Eric Dezenhall. Andrew Leonard at How the World Works critiques Dezenhall; Revere at Effect Measure and Mike Dunford at the Questionable Authority (also here) take critical looks at the big publishersâ arguments; and Jackie at Element List has compiled links and descriptions for open-access journals.
On other…
sb admin | January 26, 2007The pharmaceutical industry was a hot topic in the blogosphere this week:
Cervantes at Stayin' Alive advocates for a ban on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising (as opposed to the proposed legislation likely to come from the pharma industry).
Orac at Respectful Insolence has a different take on the "DCA is a miracle cancer drug Big Pharma doesn't want you to know about" idea that's spreading through the blogosphere.
Andrew Leonard at How the World Works knows what will make your sympathy for Big Pharma disappear.
 And, of course, there were plenty of interesting posts on other…
sb admin | January 12, 2007If you've got a long weekend coming up, what better way to spend it than by reading the best science blog posts? Coturnix of A Blog Around the Clock has links to the 50 posts chosen for the Science Blogging Anthology.
Elsewhere in the blogosphere ...
Cervantes at Stayin' Alive and Janet D. Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science respond to the report on bias in industry-financed beverage studies.
Eesha Pandit at RH Reality Check reports on UNICEF's "The State of the World's Children 2007," which found that bringing an end to gender discrimination would benefit women and children…
sb admin | January 5, 2007The blogosphere has been buzzing all week about Andrew Revkin's New York Times piece on the new "middle stance" in the climate debate. Real Climate authors have one of the most comprehensive responses to it (as well as links to several other bloggers' posts); Revkin himself responds in the extensive comment thread.
On other topics:
Ross Gelbspan at DeSmogBlog lays out "One Path to Climate Peace."
At Scientific American's blog, JR Minkel discusses the gap between the need and demand for vaccines in developing countries, and Ciara Curtin sets the record straight on treating jellyfish stings (…