medicine
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007I am pleased to see that NY is entering the era of modern medical research. In his first speech to the Legislature, Governor Eliot Spitzer called for passage of a $2 billion 10-year bond initiative for research and development, at least half of which would be set aside to pay for stem cell research. And the project is being tailored as an economic development effort in the hopes of attracting support from upstate Republican lawmakers.
Advocates for stem cell research say that if this initiative is successful, it would put New York at the forefront of the field. They also say that bringing the…
oracknows | January 16, 2007One of the consistent themes of this blog since the very beginning has been that alternative medicine treatments, before being accepted, should be subject to the same standards of evidence as "conventional" medical therapies. When advocates of evidence-based medicine (EBM) like myself say this, we are frequently treated with excuses from advocates of alternative medicine as to why their favored treatments cannot be subjected to the scientific method in the same way that medicine has increasingly applied it to its own treatments over the last few decades, in the process weeding out treatments…
terrasig | January 16, 2007Brazilian researchers have been experimenting with an gel containing an algae-based anti-HIV compound designed for use by women to prevent the spread of the virus.
Derived from the Brazilian brown alga, Dictyota pfaffii, two papers are available the describe the isolation and biological activity of the most active of the components, the dolabellane diterpene 8,10,18-trihydroxy-2,6-dolabelladiene. The compound does indeed appear to inhibit HIV reverse transcriptase at concentrations (about 16 micromolar) that can be maintained in a vaginal gel preparation.
Human trials are expected to being…
oracknows | January 16, 2007A couple of days ago, I commented on the sad case of Jennifer Strange, the woman who entered a water drinking contest and died, apparently of water intoxication. While listening to the radio this morning as I got ready for work, I heard pundits discussing the case, and one of them stated that she had drunk over two gallons of water in the course of the contest. I've been unable to confirm that Strange did indeed drink that much water, but, if true, that would be around 8 L of water in a short period of time and would be enough to explain her death.
The DJ also mentioned that the Sacramento…
grrlscientist | January 15, 2007Scientists at the Imperial College of London are developing a drug based on a natural gut hormone that mimics the body's satiation response. An injectible treatment of pancreatic polypeptide (PP) could be available in five to eight years, but the long-term goal is to produce a form that can be absorbed in the mouth.
There is evidence that some people have more PP than others, and people who become overweight produce less PP than people with a healthy weight. Thus, a vicious circle results, causing appetite to increase, an inability to resist the temptation of food, causing further increases…
omnibrain | January 15, 2007Just look at what it can cure!
Skin Diseases
Cancer
Heart Diseases
Musculoskeletal Disorders
Male Sexual Disorders
Aids
Hypertension
Therapy
Diabetes Mellitus
Blood Disorders
Respiratory Disorders
Gastrointestinal Disorders
Endocrine Disorders
ENT Disorders
Gynecological Disorders
Opthalmic Disorders
Psychiatric Disorders
Urological Disorders
Aids
Cold & Cough
Heart Problem
Blood Pressure
Asthema
Sugar Problem
Kidney Shrinkage
Liver Problem
Skin Disease
Cancer
Stomach Problem
Poor Sight
Gynic Problem
Woman's Problem
Chest Pain
Did they leave out anything?
So how does this cow urine work…
j7uy5 | January 15, 2007
Everyone knows that HIV is American prisons is a huge problem, but we don't hear much about it. There are several reasons for that. For one, prisons are unpleasant places, and for the most part, we don't want to think about what goes on there. For another, many people figure that whatever happens to prisoners is their problem; some even assume that whatever happens to inmates is part of their well-deserved punishment. Perhaps homophobia is a factor, too. For some, it may be unpleasant for them to think about one of the modes of transmission of HIV/AIDS. Not that any mode is particularly nice…
oracknows | January 14, 2007After competing in a water-drinking contest to win a Wii for her children, a young mother died of water intoxication:
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A woman who competed in a radio station's contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner's office said Saturday.
Jennifer Strange, 28, was found dead Friday in her suburban Rancho Cordova home hours after taking part in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest in which KDND 107.9 promised a Nintendo Wii video game system for the winner.
"She said to one of our supervisors that she…
oracknows | January 14, 2007I've lamented numerous times (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about the sometimes painful ignorance of biology and evolutionary theory that's all too common among my fellow physicians, an ignorance that leads to truly embarrassing forays into the "debate" over the pseudoscience of "intelligent design" versus the real science of evolution, an example of which includes the Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity's idiotic petition expressing "skepticism" about evolution.
Here we go again. This time, I learn of a pro-"intelligent design" book for children written by....a physician!
Note the author:…
oracknows | January 13, 2007Even though women are an increasing proportion of doctors, it's still true that most physicians are men. And what better way for big pharma to influence those men than with hot young female pharmaceutical reps? And where better to find hot young female pharmaceutical reps than in cheerleading squads?
I therefore introduce to you the All-Pharma Cheerleading Squad!
(Hat tip to Kevin, MD and Pharmagossip, the latter of which frequently makes fun of big pharma's blatant recruiting of young, beautiful women to serve as reps.)
oracknows | January 13, 2007In a warmup for his "debate" later today in LaJolla, CA with Arthur Allen, David Kirby spews the usual pseudoscience again. I can't believe he's still making the long debunked "autism has the same symptoms as mercury poisoning" statement with a straight face, and then continuing to parrot the same old "mercury in thimerosal in vaccines causes autism" and the same fallacy of equating correlation with causation by claiming that, because autism increased in the 1990's at the same time when more vaccines were being added to the childhood vaccination schedule.
I'm not sure why the video is cut…
oracknows | January 12, 2007Those of you who've been around this blog for a long time probably remember Dr. Lorraine Day. In fact, I mentioned her in one of the very first substantive posts that I ever did regarding why breast cancer testimonials for alternative medicines are inherently misleading, presenting her as an example of a once respected academic orthopedic surgeon who had fallen deeply into woo. I had also been aware of her association with infamous Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, but I had mainly thought that this was more because of Zündel's love of woo (he claimed that he had cancer and had called Dr. Day…
oracknows | January 12, 2007The other day, as is my wont every week, I was perusing my Folder of Woo, the folder on my computer in which I keep a bunch of URLs leading to many potential targets for Your Friday Dose of Woo, looking for this week's victim. I had one all picked out, too, but for some reason it just wasn't getting the woo-inator going enough to inspire me to do what is expected every week. Not that it wasn't good woo, even really good woo. It just wasn't great woo, and YFDoW just hasn't been around long enough for me to settle for anything less than the greatest, finest, tastiest woo just yet. Or maybe it…
oracknows | January 11, 2007Online prayer benefits breast cancer patients?
At least that's what they were saying a couple of days ago on the Internets:
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Praying online in a support group may help women with breast cancer cope with the disease more effectively, a new study shows.
Dr. Bret Shaw of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues found that breast cancer patients who used a higher percentage of religion-related words in their communications with an Internet support group had lower levels of negative emotions, better functional well-being, and more confidence in their ability to…
j7uy5 | January 10, 2007Notice the prominent use of the word "potential." That is
potential as in may or may not ever come to anything. As word
of these potential treatments gets out, we can expect that unscrupulous
persons will try to market things that sound like the potential
treatments I am about to discuss, but which are completely bogus.
So, I hope that people keep this kind of thing in mind, and
to the extent possible, learn to distinguish fact from fiction when it
comes to health products.
rel="tag">Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is one of those
things that seems to attract a lot of attention from certain…
oracknows | January 9, 2007Inspired by the story of the faith healer who claimed that Jesus cured her of a breast cancer she in fact never had and, it turned out, who also claimed that faith had healed her brother of a terminal cancer and covered up the fact that he was dying while promoting her book, here's a proposed cure for televangelists who claim they can cure disease through the power of prayer:
New York - (Ass Mess): A team of plastic surgeons, clinical psychatrists and orthodontists has patented a radical procedure that cures evangelical preachers from claiming Jesus is more effective at healing cancer than…
oracknows | January 9, 2007It is with a bit of trepidation that I write about this.
The reason, for anyone who reads ScienceBlogs specifically or science blogs in general, should be obvious. Richard Dawkins is such a polarizing figure with a penchant for stirring things up with regards to the most deeply held beliefs of both the religious and atheists, that he has all too often served as a flashpoint for battles between secularism and religion or a convenient excuse for the two most popular of my fellow ScienceBloggers to indulge their mutual animosity publicly. Posting about Dawkins, whether you defend or criticize…
oracknows | January 8, 2007Last week, our Seed overlords published on the flagship an Agence France-Presse article about a survey in Britain whose results showed that large numbers of people believe that cancer is due to "fate" rather than risk factors that can be modified to decrease one's risk of developing the disease:
LONDON (AFP)--More than a quarter of people believe that fate alone will determine whether they get cancer, not their lifestyle choices, according to a survey conducted by charity Cancer Research UK.
The poll of more than 4,000 adults across the country asked people if they thought they could reduce…
j7uy5 | January 8, 2007You might think that developing a system for EMR would be fairly
straightforward. After all, some of the things that computers
are
really good for, are the storing, retrieval, and display of
information. But somehow, developing a system that actually
works AND
is easy to use in a hospital environment, has proven to be rather
challenging.
Reading a post on the blog,
href="http://infoisfree.blogspot.com/2006/12/it-in-hospital-main-hospital-i-work-at.html">Information
is Free (so help yourself.) I was reminded of a few thoughts
I've been meaning to disseminate. This is on the topic of…
oracknows | January 8, 2007It was just last week that I was made aware of the sad news that Katie Wernecke, the 14-year-old girl with Hodgkin's lymphoma whose parents' battle to reject radiation therapy and additional chemotherapy made national news in 2005 and who ultimately went for high dose vitamin C therapy at an altie clinic in Kansas, had relapsed. (Even now, altie vultures are advertising their wares in the comments of the post in which Katie's father announced her relapse, and chastising a lone MD who posted a comment begging the family to try conventional medicine while there's still a chance.) As regular…