medicine
oracknows | August 24, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 24, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 23, 2006Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, as I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "cure"…
oracknows | August 23, 2006Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, as I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "cure"…
j7uy5 | August 23, 2006In Part I, I gave a brief review of an article in Scientific
American, entitled
href="http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945">The
Expert Mind.
The article described the outcome of research into the mental
processes of expert chess players. The motivation for the
research is to find out how expertise works, to see if there is a
systematic way to develop expertise in a variety of fields.
Perhaps the most important finding in this endeavor is that experts
have developed, through a great deal of practice, an excellent capacity
for pattern…
oracknows | August 23, 2006Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, because I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "…
oracknows | August 22, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 22, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 21, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 21, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
purepedantry | August 20, 2006I found this article interesting, if for no other reason than people seem to be misunderstanding what it says and what it does not say.
The article by Leigh and Jencks for the Kennedy School of Government is entitled "Inequality and Mortality: Long-Run Evidence from a Panel of Countries." It compares the inequalities of income distribution in countries around the world with measures of health. The measure they use for income inequality is the percentage of income recieved by the top 10% of the income distribution. The measures of health that they use are infant mortality and life…
oracknows | August 20, 2006Wallace Sampson tells us the real history of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Much of TCM, it turns out, isn't as "traditional" as it is sold as being.
oracknows | August 19, 2006And, worse, this is from my home state as well:
LANSING - A Rochester Hills chiropractor defended the techniques of a Fenton chiropractor accused of performing unorthodox breast treatments.
The teen girls treated by Robert J. Moore have spinal curvatures that may have caused their bodies to tilt and force one breast to droop lower than the other, said Dr. Robert Ducharme, a chiropractor who testified Tuesday in Moore's defense.
Moore risks losing his chiropractic license after four women, including two teenage girls, claim he fondled them during office and after-hours visits.
Moore, 41,…
oracknows | August 18, 2006Given how much I've written about the Abraham Cherrix case, I would be remiss in not pointing out some posts by fellow ScienceBloggers:
1. First, Abel Pharmboy discusses how this might all come down to a failure of communication between Cherrix's doctors and Cherrix and his parents. While this is probably true, I'm not sure that any amount of communication and empathy would have changed Cherrix's mind. Abel also makes some good points about "natural" therapies in cancer. I would also agree with him that it is important to be as nonconfrontational as possible when a patient insists on…
oracknows | August 18, 2006Glutton for punishment that I am, all in the name of skepticism, critical thinking, and evidence-based medicine, I am sometimes wont to surf through the stranger parts of the Internet in search of truly amazing material for Your Friday Dose of Woo. Sometimes, I hit the jackpot, as I did a few weeks ago. Sometimes I don't. Regardless, I'm always amazed at the strangeness that I encounter. This week, I was pondering what topic to cover. Once again, there were so many possibilities that I was having a hard time making up my mind, even more so than usual. While contemplating this dilemma, I felt…
oracknows | August 17, 2006I wondered what took him so long (maybe diving into heated debates is not his style), but fellow ScienceBlogger The Cheerful Oncologist has weighed on on the Cherrix case, in which a 16-year-old has refused chemotherapy for his Hodgkin's disease. And he would know better than I what the treatment options are for relapsed Hodgkin's disease. Personally, I'd like to see him chime in on such issues more often.
clock | August 17, 2006[Slightly edited post from May 04, 2006] Collecting stories has become a really exciting endeavor lately. While writing down people's stories has been done since time immemorial, on stone tablets, clay tablets and papyrus scrolls, the modern technology allows more people to record oral and written histories than ever before.
Everyone can now write, make an audio or video recording, and publish their life stories. We can tap into the wisdom of the elders and preserve their memories for posterity. The history will not be written only by winners, and, gasp, by semi-automated textbook-writing…
clock | August 17, 2006It's a big AIDS week here and I hope you are checking the AIDS at 25 special blog here on scienceblogs.com. There is a lot of good information and opinion there. And then, sometimes there is some fun. Like this one, for instance, which look almost elegant compared to the one under the fold....
This dress reminds me of posters with a bunch of colorful condoms, inflated, with smiley faces drawn on their 'heads' I remember since late 1980s (when AIDS became big news in Yugoslavia). I also remember the slogan "Kondom u svaki dom!" (a condom in every home) from that era.
j7uy5 | August 17, 2006For decades, corporate influences, primarily in the media, have
pressured women to have poor body images. This has spurred
growth of entire industries in fashion, weight loss, etc. No
doubt, billions of dollars have been made in this way. The
only price to society has been the epidemic of eating
disorders.
However, the marketing impact has largely been limited to women.
Now, it appears, men are increasingly affected.
A study by Dr. Tracy
Tylka, presented at the annual American Psychological
Association meeting this year, provides the details:
href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/…