medicine
oracknows | December 9, 2012For all the worship of "translational" research that is currently in vogue, it needs to be remembered that a robust pipeline of basic science progress upon which to base translational research and clinical trials is absolutely essential if progress in medicine is to continue. Without it, progress in SBM will slow and even grind to a halt. That's why, in the U.S., the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is so critical. The NIH funds large amounts of biomedical research each year, which means that what the NIH will and will not fund can't help but have a profound effect shaping the pipeline of…
oracknows | December 6, 2012There's a phenomenon known as off-label prescribing. Basically, to prescribe something off-label is to prescribe it for an indication that is not FDA-approved but that is supported by considerable evidence. For example, it could involve using an FDA-approved drug for an indication that is not within its approval, for an unapproved age range (such as children), or at an unapproved dose or in an unapproved form. Although the FDA has the power to approve drugs for specific indications, it doesn't actually have the power to regulate the practice of medicine, which means that physicians can use…
denialism | December 3, 2012I'm very disturbed to see the amount of exposure that Dr. Oz has credulously given to gay conversion therapy quacks. Via Ed I read Warren Throckmorton's coverage of the disaster on Oz's show, with the reversion therapists lying and contradicting their own previous statements about the therapy, what it accomplishes, and their philosophy of sexual orientation. Worse, those brought on to counter the misinformation were given no time to address all the falsehoods, all the while the gay conversion therapy quacks were represented as being of equivalent expertise.
It's unfortunate that even as we'…
oracknows | November 28, 2012If there's one thing that antivaccine cranks tell us that has a grain of truth in it, it's to be wary of pharmaceutical companies and their influence. Their mission is, of course, to make profits, and sometimes the search for profits can lead them to do things that are less than savory. Of course, antivaccine cranks take reasonable skepticism and wariness of pharmaceutical company influence and amp it up to ridiculous heights, in much the same way that they take concerns about potential side effects of vaccines and amp them up to even more ridiculous heights. It's what they do. In any case, I…
oracknows | November 27, 2012Antivaccinationists just love the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting (VAERS) database. As in love it to death. As in "can't get enough of it." The reason, of course, is that VAERS is a lot like an unmoderated discussion forum or, at best, a minimally moderated forum. Anyone can say anything they like. The reason is that it is a database to which anyone can add an entry, and there is only minimal effort to determine whether a given purported adverse reaction to vaccines being entered is actually the least bit likely to be even related to vaccines. Indeed, it took a man claiming that his child was…
oracknows | November 14, 2012It wasn't so long ago (less than a week, actually), that I noticed what I referred to as a paean to the quackery known as naturopathy. It appeared—where else?—on that wretched hive of scum and quackery known at The Huffington Post. It was even entitled My Love Affair with Naturopathy. Not unexpectedly, this very article revealed just what quacks naturopaths are, as it told the story of a woman with vague symptoms, "messed up menstrual cycles," and other complaints who went to a naturopath and was blown away by the "personalized" attention and even more happy that this particular naturopath…
denialism | November 14, 2012While I realize Joe Walsh lost his election bid, it is still worth emphasizing that his infamous statements about abortion are false, especially considering efforts like those in Ohio to pass a "heartbeat bill". Abortion is sometimes necessary to save the life of the mother. Via the Irish Times we hear the sad story of a woman being allowed to get sicker and sicker, while a non-viable but "living" fetus kills her.
“The doctor told us the cervix was fully dilated, amniotic fluid was leaking and unfortunately the baby wouldn’t survive.” The doctor, he says, said it should be over in a few…
oracknows | November 13, 2012Regular readers probably know that I'm into more than just science, skepticism, and promoting science-based medicine (SBM). (If they're regular readers of my other, not-so-super-secret other project, they might also realize that they've seen this post before elsewhere. I had to stay out late for a work-related event and decided to tart it up and recycle. So sue me.) I'm also into science fiction (hence the very name of this blog, not to mention the pseudonym I use), computers, and baseball, not to mention politics (at least more than average). That's why our recent election, coming as it did…
oracknows | November 11, 2012I'm a scientist, but I'm also a surgeon, which means I've spent quite a bit of time in operating rooms. In the OR, teamwork is critical, and each member of the team should be using science- and evidence-based medicine to inform their judgment regarding what to do. If there's one kind of practitioner in the OR that relies heavily on SBM, it should be the anesthesiologist. Surgery is a combination of science and technical skill, and sometimes deciding what to do in the operating room is more a matter of judgment based on experience than science. For instance, if I encounter bleeding, what I do…
lborkowski | November 9, 2012by Kim Krisberg
This is the first in a series exploring the intersections between effectively caring for people living with chronic pain and the rise in unintentional poisoning deaths due to prescription painkillers. The series will explore the science and policy of balancing the need for treatment as well as the need to prevent abuse and diversion. This week's story provides a look at the field of pain medicine and the patients it cares for; next week's story will look at the educational and risk reduction approaches physicians are employing to address opioid addiction and overdose.
It took…
sa smith | November 9, 2012One of the more amusing aspects of 'You are only criticizing Islam because you are RACIST AGAINST MIDDLE-EASTERNERS!!!!' is the fact that most Muslims do not live in the Middle-East.
They live in Asia.
Case in point: Indonesia, where about >87% of the population is Muslim. 12.7% of all Muslims live in Indonesia (Iraq? 1.2%).
So naturally, like Christians in the US try to pass legislation to make Christianity The Law (for everyone, whether you are Christian or not), Muslims in Indonesia try to pass legislation to make Islam The Law (for everyone, whether you are Muslim or not).
And,…
oracknows | November 9, 2012If you're a skeptic and supporter of science-based medicine (SBM), as I am, no doubt there are times when you ask yourself in exasperation, frustration, or curiosity just what the appeal of quackery is to so many people. Why do people fall for this stuff? you no doubt ask yourself at times. Certainly I do sometimes, and even though I know a lot about the cognitive shortcomings that we humans all share that lead to confirmation bias, confusing correlation with causation, mistaking placebo effects and regression to the mean for real therapeutic effects, and poor observational skills, sometimes…
oracknows | November 7, 2012I've been writing about Stanislaw Burzynski again, just yesterday having mentioned a warning letter that the Burzynski Clinic received from the FDA last month. Given Dr. Burzynski's history of promoting a highly dubious cancer therapy that he calls antineoplastons and administering them to patients under the guise of clinical trials for which he charges patients huge sums of money and of also selling an equally dubious form of "personalized gene targeted cancer therapy" that I've referred to as "personalized cancer therapy for dummies," I took a very dim view of his having received yet…
oracknows | November 5, 2012It's no secret that I have little but contempt for radical animal rights activists. I make no apologies for this and, quite frankly, consider my contempt for them well-justified based on their behavior and words. Be it their fetishization of violence against researchers who use animals, their threatening of students in order to frighten them away from careers in scientific research that might involve the use of animals (for example, Alena Rodriguez), intimidating researchers by declaring their children as "not off limits," trying to burn investigators' houses down, harassing researchers, and…
dr. dolittle | October 30, 2012
Image from: http://Phys.Org
Not only do bees sting, but they also bite victims that are too small for stingers (ex: wax moth larva that invade the beehive and eat pollen) and paralyze them for up to nine minutes by secreting 2-heptanone into the wound. This paralysis gives the bees time to remove the invaders from the beehive. Dr. Papachristoforou and his team at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece discovered the paralyzing effects of the honeybee bite while studying wax moth larvae that invade the beehives. Their data suggest that this chemical may be an effective anesthetic for…
oracknows | October 25, 2012Instead of the usual logorrheic (usually) well-thought out Insolence you've come to expect every day, Instead, you'll hvae an announcement and a couple of random thoughts. The reasons are multiple. First, today's a travel day. I'm heading off to Nashville to attend and speak at CSICon. My topic? What do you think it will be? Why, quackademic medicine, of course! (What else would it be?) Not only will I get to share the stage with old friends and blogging collaborators, but with Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education! Yes, as part of the overall discussion of the problem of…
oracknows | October 23, 2012Given how many bloggers have already weighed in on the story of an Italian court convicting geologists of manslaughter for failing to issue adequate earthquake warnings before an earthquake that devastated the town of L'Aquila, including Steve Novella, Daniela at Skepchicks, Sharon Hill at Skeptic, and even Instapundit, you'd think that even Orac wouldn't have anything to say about it. You would, of course, be wrong. Orac always has something to say about such things. The question is simply whether he decides he's interested enough in the story to take the time and effort to compose and let…
denialism | October 20, 2012I've been lurking at the Skeptical OB for a while and enjoying Amy Tuteur's very effective criticism of some of the extremes of the homebirth movement. I had noticed that among some advocates of homebirth that were proposing risky behavior for pregnant mom's that conflict with the literature that it appears to be a movement rife with denialists who promote the valorization of ignorance in Dr. Tuteur's words. Mostly their problems seem to be with accepting there is a real, measureable increase in risk with homebirth, and rejecting the very real health benefits that medical physicans offer in…
oracknows | October 18, 2012The 2012 election campaign is in full swing, and, for better or worse, health care is one of the major defining issues of the election. How can it not be, given the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also colloquially known as "Obamacare," was one of the Obama administration's major accomplishments and arguably the largest remaking of the American health care system since Medicare in 1965? It's also been singularly unpopular thus far, contributing to the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections, as well as the erosion of…
oracknows | October 9, 2012Another year, another Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
While most people who have either been touched by breast cancer or who have a professional interest in it, the significance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is that it is a time, well, to increase awareness and to promote breast cancer research. There is another side to Breast Cancer Awareness Month, however, and it's not just the question of its excessive commercialization, which concerns some people. Rather, inevitably, just as the vaccine-autism quacks have come out of the woodwork for Autism Awareness Month each April, each October…