Medicine
The quack view of preventing breast cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie
Posted by Orac on May 15, 2013 I should have known it. I should have known that the reaction wouldn’t take very long. I should have known it based on prior history. The news story to which I am referring is, of course, the revelation yesterday in the New York Times editorial page by Angelina Jolie that she had decided to undergo…
Protecting Our Chief Pollinators
Posted by Wesley Dodson on May 14, 2013 
Last week the European Union voted to ban neonicotinoid pesticides in an effort to fight colony collapse disorder among honeybees. Although research has clearly fingered these pesticides in bee behavioral problems, the ban is still something of a shot in the dark, as multiple environmental factors may be at play in CCD. Greg Laden writes…
Dog DNA may hold clues to eczema for humans
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on May 13, 2013 Dr. Kerstin Lindblad-Toh at Uppsala University (Sweden) who specializes in comparative genomics and Dr. Åke Hedhammar, SLU (Sweden) recently identified a novel gene in German shepherd dogs, PKP-2, that encodes a protein (plakophilin-2) important for regulating proper skin structure and function. This protein was found to be associated with canine atopic dermatitis (i.e. doggy eczema), a…
Alternative cancer “cures”: Nothing’s changed in 34 years
Posted by Orac on May 13, 2013 Sometimes blogging topics arise from the strangest places. It’s true. For instance, although references to how tobacco causes cancer and the decades long denialist campaign by tobacco companies are not infrequently referenced in my blogging (particularly from supporters of highly dubious studies alleging a link between cell phone radiation and cancer and the ham-handed misuse…
Deconstructing another Stanislaw Burzynski cancer “success story”
Posted by Orac on May 9, 2013 A key pillar of the Stanislaw Burzynski antineoplaston marketing machine, a component of the marketing strategy without which his clinic would not be able to attract nearly as many desperate cancer patients to Houston for either his antineoplaston therapy (now under a temporary shutdown by the FDA that, if science were to reign, will become…
Obama Makes Hospital Charge Masters Public
Posted by Mark on May 8, 2013 And the best article on the implications of this, surprisingly, comes from Huffington post authors Young and Kirkham: The database released on Wednesday by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services lays out for the first time and in voluminous detail how much the vast majority of American hospitals charge for the 100 most…
Eric Merola and Stanislaw Burzynski’s secret weapon against The Skeptics™: Fabio Lanzoni (Part 2)
Posted by Orac on May 8, 2013 I’ve been very, very critical of a self-proclaimed cancer doctor named Stanislaw Burzynski, who is not an oncologist but somehow has managed over the last 36 years to treat patients with unapproved cancer drugs, list dozens of phase 2 clinical trials in ClinicalTrials.gov but never publish a completed one (at least to this date), and…
From the dentist’s chair, remembering how they cried wolf
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on May 7, 2013 In the early 1990′s, the American Dental Association put up quite a fight to oppose an OSHA regulation requiring dentists to provide gloves, masks and goggles to employees who could be exposed to blood-contaminated saliva.
Clinging tightly
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on May 7, 2013 Live Science posted a story recently on the sticking power of clingfish. Northern clingfish, like the one shown in the image above, live in turbulent waters off the Pacific Coast of North America. In order to cling to surfaces, the animals have what are called adhesion discs on their bellies that they use to hold…
A young antivaccine propagandist plans to teach his mad skillz to other antivaccinationists
Posted by Orac on May 7, 2013 As hard as it might be to believe, one time over 20 years ago I actually took the Dale Carnegie course and, as part of that course, read his famous book How To Win Friends and Influence People. I know, I know. It’s probably not obvious from my style of writing on this particular blog,…
