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Discussing causes, origins, evolution, and implications of disease and other phenomena.
Tara C. Smith is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology. Her research involves a number of pathogens at the animal-human nexus. She also writes for The Panda's Thumb and previously for WIRED SCIENCE's Correlations. Please note the views expressed on this site are Dr. Smith's alone and may not be representative of the groups mentioned above.
"...a veritable expert on tawdry cosmetic procedures gone horribly awry..."--Kevin Beck
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October 31, 2005
Category: Cancer epidemiology
As mentioned in the comments to this post, there is a brewing controversy over upcoming guidelines outlining who should receive the "cervical cancer vaccine," a vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV). Briefly, the HPV vaccine is a highly...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 9:42 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 27, 2005
Category: General biology
(And not in a supportive way). PZ and Orac discussed a recent New England Journal of Medicine editorial critical of intelligent design. Though the article had several shortcomings, it's always a bonus to see other scientists treating ID as a...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 10:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 24, 2005
Category: General Epidemiology
Doctors recommend hepatitis shot for kids Hepatitis A is a virus that causes (obviously) hepatitis, as well as jaundice, fatigue, nausea, fever, loss of appetite, and diarrhea. It's often spread fecal-orally; that is, you put something in your mouth that...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 3:28 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 20, 2005
Category: Iowa/area news
That's my new favorite anti-ID quote, spoken by Mark Blumberg, at the University of Iowa Freethinkers' panel discussion on intelligent design last evening. Dr. Blumberg was discussing what a piss-poor design the human vertebral column is, and concluded his talk...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 12:12 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Intelligent design/creationism
I liked him so much better during his "Tiger Beat" days. Next thing they'll tell me is that Boner has become a monk... (But on the plus side, "argument from banana" is now my favorite creationist argument)....
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 10:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 19, 2005
Category: General Epidemiology
It's situations like this that really irk me. I mentioned the tularemia detection in DC here almost 2 weeks ago, already annoyed that there hadn't been more information about it. There has been some discussion on the ProMed list, but...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 11:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 18, 2005
Category: General Epidemiology
Ah, how rare is it that my interest in stomping creationists and my interest in infectious disease collide. But I guess that when there's a topic as hot as avian influenza, it's inevitable that even the folks at the DI...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 11:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 17, 2005
Category: Infectious disease
We still don't know what's going on with Idaho, where there have been 9 suspected cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in 2005. More below the fold....
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 11:30 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Infectious disease
Andrea Bottaro has an excellent review of prion genetics over at Panda's Thumb. Prions are, of course, the transmissible agents that cause diseases such as kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob in humans, and related disease such as "mad cow" disease, scrapie, and...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 10:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 12, 2005
Category: General Epidemiology
In the October issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, James Hughes and Jeffrey Koplan discuss the problem of safe water. Hazardous drinking water and poor sanitation is something that gets brought up when there's a disaster (like Katrina, or the tsunami...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 12:00 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Orac 02.13.2012
Tim Lambert 09.12.2011
ERV 11.26.2011
Tim Lambert 02.01.2012
Orac 01.26.2012
