medicine
oracknows | June 12, 2007The first day's testimony for the Autism Omnibus has been posted, and Autism Diva has the scoop.
I haven't had a chance to peruse the PDF file of the testimony, but what the Diva reports is plenty damning. Maybe I was wrong to be so pessimistic in my earlier post. Dr. H. Vasken Aposhian's testimony is even lamer than my post suggested. On the other hand, the emotionalism in this trial still worries me, as does the uncritical press coverage concentrating on the plaintiffs' "feelings" and only mentioning in a single sentence or two, down near the end of the article or report, that--oh, by the…
oracknows | June 12, 2007The Autism Omnibus is now officially under way, having begun with the first test case, that of Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Omnibus proceeding is the culmination of the legal cases brought to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program by nearly 5,000 families who "feel" that their children's autism was in fact caused by vaccines. Most, but not all, of the plaintiffs blame the mercury in the thimerosal in childhood vaccines, despite there being no good evidence to support such a link, so much so that both David Kirby, whose book Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and…
oracknows | June 11, 2007Dedicated advocate of evidence-based medicine that I am, I am sometimes labeled by those who do not understand skepticism as a "shill" for big pharma. Of course, such accusations are simply the logical fallacy known as poisoning the well, in which the credulous engage in preemptive ad hominem attacks designed to associate me with the hated big pharma, but it's a common enough tactic that sometimes I can't help but joke that I wish pharma did actually pay me for my little hobby here. After all, why do for free (or for a pittance from my Seed overlords) what, if you believe the alties, I could…
oracknows | June 10, 2007Here is the myth of Simpsonwood being memorialized on the seventh anniversary of the meeting where, if you believe the mercury militia, the CDC, in cahoots with big pharma, tried to suppress the "truth" that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. it is a myth that was popularized by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s misinformation-laden Salon.com article two years ago that trotted out every pseudoscientific and fallacious argument claiming that vaccines, specifically the mercury in the thimerosal preservative used in vaccines, causes autism.
Here are some commentaries that reveal the myth for what it…
oracknows | June 10, 2007There's not much to add to this other than...ouch!
1949 was not a good year for the treatment of prostatitis, was it?
Hat tip to Modern Mechanix.
oracknows | June 10, 2007While reading through a mailing list I belong to, I came across a link that demonstrates that alternative medicine has been ingrained in popular culture since at least the 1920's and 1930's. Indeed, I never realized that that icon of flappers, Betty Boop, practiced homeopathy. Don't believe me? Well, here's incontrovertible evidence in the form of a short called Betty Boop, M.D. released in 1932 and perhaps the most bizarre Boop short I've ever seen (particularly the last shot, which makes me wonder if acid had actually been invented six years before it was supposedly discovered). Basically,…
j7uy5 | June 9, 2007Why
is it that recovering persons with alcoholism should not drink
near-beer (beer with little or no alcohol)?
...Hank
had been dry for several weeks thanks to a radical withdrawal program,
but a simple walk past Pete's Tavern on any given night almost erased
his will to abstain. During the daytime he did not feel a craving for
alcohol, but when he passed the bar in the evening--when he saw the
warm light through the windows and heard the glasses clinking--he would
be sorely tempted to run inside for a beer. Addiction researchers call
this phenomenon "conditioned desire." If a person had…
jstemwedel | June 9, 2007On this blog I occasionally note a major motion picture that is (tangentially) related to ethics in science, not to mention seeking your advice on my movie-viewing decisions (the votes are running 2 to 1 in favor of my watching Flash Gordon; if I do, I may have to live-blog it).
Today, I'm going to give you an actual review* of a DVD whose subject is ethical scientific research.
Because you ought to have options when planning your weekend!
A member of the Adventures in Ethics and Science Field Team brought me a DVD to review, "Ethics in Biomedical Research". This is a DVD produced by the…
oracknows | June 9, 2007Here's a tragic story:
NEW YORK - A medical examiner blamed a 17-year-old track star's death on the use of too much muscle cream, the kind used to soothe aching legs after exercise.
Arielle Newman, a cross-country runner at Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island, died after her body absorbed high levels of methyl salicylate, an anti-inflammatory found in sports creams such as Bengay and Icy Hot, the New York City medical examiner said Friday.
The medical examiner's spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove, said the teen used "topical medication to excess." She said it was the first time that her office had…
clock | June 8, 2007I often blog about malaria because it is a fascinating disease which has to be studied in a highly integrative manner, is a great teaching topic and I could tie it in with my own field.
If you share my fascination, than your Obligatory Reading Of The Day is this post by Bug Girl (via) about the truth about DDT, Rachael Carson, malaria and the wingnut lies about it. Follow the links within it as well for more information.
grrlscientist | June 8, 2007tags: green blood, medicine
It was the middle of the night when surgeons were preparing to perform emergency surgery in Vancouver, Canada. The man they were going to operate on had developed compartment syndrome in his legs after he fell asleep while kneeling. Compartment syndrome is a dangerous medical condition where pressure builds up in the deep muscle tissues and can cause permanent nerve damage. However, when the surgical team established an arterial line in the man's wrist, they were surprised to discover that his blood was dark green instead of bright red. Even though the man is not a…
oracknows | June 8, 2007It saddens people, but doesn't particularly surprise, when some professionals are killed in the line of duty. For professions such as soldier, police office, and firefighter, for example, it's expected that occasionally some will lose their lives in the line of duty because of the dangerous nature of the job. Less expected is when medical professionals suffer similar sacrifices. For example, a few days ago at my old alma mater, the University of Michigan, a Survival Flight air ambulance on the way back from Wisconsin after procuring organs for transplant crashed into Lake Michigan with no…
omnibrain | June 8, 2007Yes yes... I know cancer isn't funny and I also seem to be obsessed with Family Guy in the last day or two. So without further ado.... Here's a Peter Tumor!
omnibrain | June 8, 2007I know you probably can't see the image and text very well - so just go ahead and click on the picture for this damn funny parody in full size.
omnibrain | June 8, 2007Clearly I'm not a medicine bio person - but this just had to make it onto the blog.
Researchers at Burnham Institute for Medical Research ("Burnham") have provided the first evidence that gamma-secretase, an enzyme key to the progression of Alzheimer's, acts as a tumor suppressor by altering the pathway of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a potential treatment target for cancer. Expedited to publication online by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, these findings reveal a limitation of targeting gamma-secretase for treatment of Alzheimer's and potentially other diseases.…
oracknows | June 8, 2007As we continue our countdown to having reached one full year of woo (namely, the one year anniversary of Your Friday Dose of Woo), it's occurred to me that there's one form of woo that I've dealt with before, but haven't revisited. It's a bit of woo that's so monumentally silly that it's hard to believe that anyone can take it seriously, although I will admit up front that it is not quite as silly as homeopathy. It's close though. I'm talking, of course, about pH woo, the concept that pretty much every disease (or at least a whole heck of a lot of them) is caused by alterations in your blood…
grrlscientist | June 7, 2007tags: wii, wiiitis, repetive-motion injuries, medicine
I spend between one and two afternoons at my local watering hole each week (when the library is closed), using their free wifi connection to post entries onto my blog. This watering hole is somewhat ahead of the curve as far as modern entertainment goes, since in addition to wifi, it also has wii (pronounced "wee").
What is wii, you ask? Wii is a new video game where people can use a small hand-held "wand" that allows them to simulate real body movements by hitting tennis balls or tossing bowling balls while playing competitively against…
oracknows | June 7, 2007As I mentioned a few days ago, I was at the ASCO Meeting over the weekend, arriving home Tuesday evening. ASCO has to be, as far as I can tell, the largest cancer meeting in the world. How big? 30,000 or so attendees big. Hundreds of sessions and talks big. Filling most of McCormick Center in Chicago big. Filling most hotel rooms in the city of Chicago big. Or, as these photos show, this big:
And, to reflect the hugeness of the meeting, the exhibit hall is enormous:
As is the hugeness of many of the drug company displays...
Although I couldn't really take pictures of it (too…
oracknows | June 6, 2007Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that it's been quite a while since I've featured the antics of a certain character who's become a bit of the bête noire of my fellow surgeons. I'm referring, of course, to Dr. Michael Egnor, a renowned neurosurgeon from SUNY Stony Brook who's made 2007 a very embarrassing year indeed for surgeons like me who accept evolution as a valid scientific theory, as, in fact, the entire underpinning of modern biological and medical sciences. Starting back in March, having whetted his appetite for looking foolish by jumping into the comments of a posts in…
oracknows | June 5, 2007Somehow this one passed under my radar four years ago. However, the there's a reason for this. First, I wasn't blogging then and thus wasn't paying as close attention to alternative medicine. Also, apparently, the State of Oregon didn't know about it until 16 months after the fact, which was still before I started blogging. In any case, behold the sad case of Sandy Boylan:
Sandy Boylan was a contagiously cheerful woman whose hobby was handing out bouquets of homegrown flowers. But in the summer of 2003, she was scared.
The 53-year-old B&B owner from Dallas, Ore., had been told by her…