medical journalism
terrasig | July 14, 2010Today, I refer you to an excellent post by Peter A. Lipson, MD, at the blog, Science-Based Medicine, entitled, "HuffPo blogger claims skin cancer is conspiracy."
The post focuses on an article by someone who contends that the link between sunlight and skin cancer is a conspiracy by dermatologists and the cosmetic dermatology industry. Dr. Lipson's highly insightful analysis about the "interview" process and how doctors must act these days on behalf of their patients concludes:
This article shows a misunderstanding of journalistic ethics, medical ethics, and medical science. It's a disaster…
terrasig | June 7, 2010On the heels of the recruitment of Deborah Blum to ScienceBlogs, I am happy to welcome journalist Maryn McKenna to our neck of the ether.
Her inaugural post can be read here.
McKenna's blog is called Superbug, reflecting the title of her most recent book, SUPERBUG: The Fatal Menace of MRSA, and her general interests in infectious diseases and food safety. Her 2004 book, BEATING BACK THE DEVIL: On The Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), named among Top Science Books of 2004 by Amazon.com and an "…
ddobbs | January 13, 2010
Tomorrow I fly to North Carolina for the ScienceOnline 2010 conference, or unconference, where on Saturday I will sit down with Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, John Timmer, and anyone else who squeezes into the room, to talk about rebooting science journalism. The obvious assumption behind the topic (if I can return to the titular metaphor) is that science journalism is such a mess that it needs not just cleaning up, but a wholesale restart. But "rebooting" is probably too mild a term for what most people think is needed; if we're to stick with digital metaphors, I'd to say the assumption is more that…
terrasig | December 4, 2009Earlier this week, I saw one of the best treatments of a misinterpreted story that has me thinking about how all news outlets should report in vitro laboratory studies.
Only thing is that it didn't come from a news outlet.
It came instead from a brainwashing site run by those medical socialist types - I am, of course, speaking of the UK National Health Service and their excellent patient education website, NHS Choices.
You may recall reading in the popular dead-tree or online press that investigators from New York Medical College in Valhalla published in British Journal of Urology…
terrasig | June 9, 2009As tipped off by Brother Orac this morning: from "60 pct of cancer patients try nontraditional med":
Some people who try unproven remedies risk only money. But people with cancer can lose their only chance of beating the disease by skipping conventional treatment or by mixing in other therapies. Even harmless-sounding vitamins and "natural" supplements can interfere with cancer medicines or affect hormones that help cancer grow.
This is mainstream sci/med journalism done right. Period.
terrasig | June 8, 2009Yet another hat tip this morning to anjou, a regular reader, commenter, and human RSS feed on all things cancer and alternative medicine (not to mention turning me on to Vanessa Hidary, the "Hebrew Mamita" spoken-word artist).
Last night anjou brought to me a superb AP Impact article, Alternative medicine goes mainstream, from medical writer Marilynn Marchione. I know that AP has been skewered as of late by various science bloggers but this particular article by Marchione is one of the best treatments I have seen in the last two years regarding the truth behind the alternative medicine…
ddobbs | May 22, 2009
Having lived with fire ants, stepped in fire ants, laid down with fire ants, and been bit just about everywhere by fire ants, the news that parasitic flies turn fire ants them into zombies by eating their brains pleases me immensely.
Speaking of pleasure: Vaughn whacks the dopamine = pleasure meme.
Sharon Begley says Obama may get a lot done, but he can't erase stereotype threat (so far).
We may be dozing, but Europe is ordering its swine flu vaccine. D'oh! Update: We're getting a start too.
"Good night, sleep tight, I love you." Why consistent bedtime routines work.
Why the best…
terrasig | May 4, 2009My clinical counterpart, surgical oncologist Dr David Gorski, has an excellent post up today at Science-Based Medicine on the irresponsible and misleading information being provided at The Huffington Post during the current H5N1/2009 influenza ("swine flu") outbreak. "The Huffington Post's War on Medical Science: A Brief History" provides a cautionary tale for us in embracing web-based news sources as our excellent print newspapers are going by the wayside.
Within the post, Dr Gorski shows that he is even more familiar with my writing than myself by citing a post at the old Terra Sig on the…
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…
terrasig | August 13, 2008Most people know of methadone as a long-term substitution therapy for people addicted to heroin, morphine, or other similar drugs called opiates or opioids. A good, free full-text description of methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) can be found in the 15 June 2001 issue of American Family Physician.
Now, in the 1 August 2008 issue of Cancer Research, Claudia Friesen and colleagues at the University of Ulm report that methadone can kill leukemia cells in culture and reverse acquired resistance to other drugs like doxorubicin (Adriamycin). Press reports to this effect appeared at the beginning…
terrasig | March 27, 2008Only time for a short post today but many news outlets are just now picking up on a 12 March WaPo article by David Segal on the 10th anniversary of the US FDA approval of the erectile dysfunction drug, Viagra. As we noted in yesterday's post, the active ingredient in Viagra, sildenafil, is so popular that even dietary supplement manufacturers are doping their products (illegally) with it and other related compounds.
While some may be cracking silly jokes today, Segal's article focuses primarily on the complexities of the female side of sexual relationships and the challenges in psychology…
terrasig | January 10, 2008This question, posed by Michigan Tech professor Dr Seth W Donahue while hiking in the Sierra Nevada, has led to the discovery of an extremely potent form of parathyroid hormone produced by black bears (Ursus americanus). In an unusual take on my usual topic of natural product therapeutics, Donahue's hope is that the ursine form of the hormone might serve as the basis for novel drugs to treat osteoporosis in humans, hibernating (on the couch) or otherwise.
Dr. Donahue's research on bears has advanced far enough toward a treatment for humans to capture commercial interest. Apjohn Group, a…
terrasig | January 8, 2008NIH has just announced the acceptance of applications for their 7th annual conference, Medicine in the Media: The Challenge of Reporting on Medical Research, 5-7 May, 2008.
The National Institutes of Health's Office of Medical Applications of Research (OMAR) presents a free annual training opportunity to help develop journalists' ability to evaluate and report on medical research. Now in its seventh year, the course curriculum builds on the best of prior years' offerings to create an intensive learning experience with hands-on application. This year's course will be held on the campus of…
terrasig | January 3, 2008I don't often venture into the fray whereby the misinformed continue to insist that thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autistic spectrum disorders when all evidence to date has led the scientific community to reject this hypothesis. However, recent stories on celebrities, namely Jenny McCarthy and Donald Trump, spouting forth about vaccines and autism led me to read with great interest a superb piece of science journalism by Ashley Pettus in the Jan-Feb 2008 issue of Harvard Magazine entitled, "A Spectrum of Disorders: The urgent search to understand the biological basis of autism."
In…
terrasig | December 15, 2007On this day in 2005 we first signed on to the blogosphere on the original Terra Sigillata at Blogger. I had spent over six months reading the blogs of other in the areas of medicine and science and wondered if there was any need for yet another blog from another frustrated scientist. But I'm an academician stuck in a position where I don't teach full-time. I really used to enjoy beginning my pharmacology lectures with little vignettes about the latest drug news or some information about an herb or dietary supplement. I've also been fortunate to have a lot of clinical colleagues who would…
terrasig | December 13, 2007I'm happy to report that physician-journalist, Tom Linden, MD, has begun blogging over at Dr Mike Magee's Health Commentary.
Dr Linden is currently Glaxo Wellcome Distinguished Professor of Medical Journalism and director of the Medical Journalism Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill J-school. As an example of the visibility of the program, one of Tom's current students, Kelly Rae Chi, just had an article posted at The Scientist on the history of the biotech industry in San Diego.
Tom recognized early the power of the internet for health information and in 1995 co-…
terrasig | December 8, 2007We've been speaking about this issue on behalf of our lymphoma colleagues since late August.
But yesterday's New York Times (Alex Berenson) and Wall Street Journal's Health Blog (Jacob Goldstein) brought greater awareness to the issue of Medicare's proposal to cut reimbursement for "smart-bomb" radioimmunotherapies for lymphomas. So far, it appears that Medicare will move forward with plans to cut reimbursements for two RIT drugs, Bexxar® and Zevalin®, to less than their acquisition costs to hospitals.
This issue had already mobilized Newsweek's Jonathan Alter to write a piercing screed…
terrasig | December 8, 2007I can't do any better than this today:
I finally got around to reading yesterday's Cancer Research Blog Carnival that I cited and was completely entranced by Matthew Zachary's essay in The Huffington Post about his long battle with medulloblastoma. It was posted originally in July and provides outstanding insights on the life of a cancer survivor.
While many oncologists are all too familiar with cases like Matthew's, this is required reading for anyone involved in cancer research, especially us basic scientists whose research is sometimes funded by organizations working toward "The Cure."
Aw…
terrasig | November 14, 2007...is the title of a Newsweek article by Jonathan Alter posted online last night that draws more attention to the Medicare restriction on reimbursements for radioimmunotherapeutic (RIT) drugs used to treat lymphomas. Surgical oncologist, Orac, and I have spoken about this issue in the last few days.
Alter admits his bias a bit, as he was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma back in 2004 and received RIT. Moreover, Alter's Newsweek colleague (and SoCal singer-songwriter), Jaime Reno, attributes RIT to his long-term remission.
The article opens as follows:
What if they found a cure for a…
terrasig | May 9, 2007Via the Knight Science Journalism Tracker at MIT, I was directed to one of the best-written articles on melamine contamination of pet food and animal feed.
David Brown at the Washington Post is the guilty party whose article appeared Monday. Brown does a terrific job of explaining how the modestly toxic substance, melamine, can cause renal failure when combined with cyanuric acid. Not widely reported in the press is the fact that cyanuric acid, another nitrogen-rich compound, has also been found to contaminate some wheat gluten and wheat flour from China.
For example, here is the most…