cancer
oracknows | April 28, 2006Here's an interesting tidbit that I came across:
A new study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Political Economy, calculates the prospective gains that could be obtained from further progress against major diseases. Kevin M. Murphy and Robert H. Topel, two University of Chicago researchers, estimate that even modest advancements against major diseases would have a significant impact � a 1 percent reduction in mortality from cancer has a value to Americans of nearly $500 billion. A cure for cancer would be worth about $50 trillion.
"We distinguish two types of health…
oracknows | April 27, 2006I just have time for a short take today. (If you need more, fortunately, Bora has posted the 33rd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle for your edification. Yes, my preamble was just an excuse to plug the Skeptics' Circle one more time.)
In the comments of yesterday's post about a medical student who is a young earth creationist, Karl asked a most interesting question:
I hope that you saw "House" last night (on FOX, of all places). A 15 year old faith healer shows up in the hospital. At one point he touches a patient who has been dignosed with terminal (Liver?) cancer. The cancer shrinks. House…
oracknows | April 11, 2006OK, I've been prodded enough!
Yes, I've been aware of the study purporting to present good anecdotal case reports showing that there might be something to the hypothesis that megadoses of vitamin C can cure cancer where other therapies fail. I've also been aware of an in vitro study that suggested selective toxicity of vitamin C to tumor cells compared to normal cells. I've even been meaning to write about since I first saw it a couple of weeks ago, but the AACR intervened, as did a number of other topics, and, like so many other topics that I want to write about but somehow never find the…
oracknows | March 27, 2006Last week, I inaugurated a new series on this blog entitled Medicine and Evolution. I even wrote what was to be the second post in the series, a post that (I hoped) would illustrate the utility of applying approaches used to study evolution to human disease. That post is essentially complete, other than requiring the addition of some links. That's what I was going to do last night, until Stranger Fruit turned me on to this study:
In a study published online today in Nature Genetics, Carlo Maley, Ph.D., a researcher at The Wistar Institute, and his colleagues report that precancerous tumors…
oracknows | March 15, 2006Evolgen and I both wrote about this earlier, when the Genetics Society of America urged people to contact their Senators. Now the biggest organization dedicated to cancer research, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), has weighed in. Received in my e-mail today:
To: All AACR Members
From: Dr. Margaret Foti, Chief Executive Officer; Dr. William G. Nelson V, Chairperson, Science Policy & Legislative Affairs Committee
Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 by e-mail
Re:'Please Contact Your Senators TODAY or TOMORROW in Support of the Specter-Harkin Budget Amendment and the…
oracknows | February 13, 2006As promised, here is the first list of links of "classic insolence" from the old blog. For new readers, this is a place to start as far as my writings about quackery and dubious alternative medicine:
What is an "altie"?
Understanding alternative medicine "testimonials" for cancer cures
Battling quackery in conventional medicine
How can intelligent people use alternative medicine?
The Orange Man
How not to win friends and influence people
Polio returns, thanks to anti-vaccination zealots
Antivaccination rhetoric running rampant on the Huffington Post (Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6)…