Dr. Pal

ScienceBloggers Peter Lipson, AKA Dr. Pal from White Coat Underground, and Janet Stemwedel, AKA Dr. Free-Ride from Adventures in Ethics and Science, return for another episode of BhTV's Science Saturday this week. They discuss Senator Tom Harkin's worrisome crusade to "validate" alternative medicine, debate whether scientists should bother to rigorously investigate popular junk science, explain why doctors should exhibit humility in the face of disease, and issue a call for scientists to get political. Related ScienceBlogs Posts: Peter on Tom Harkin's war on science Janet on conventional…
This week, our regularly scheduled "Science Saturday" feature has become "Science Monday" due to some technical difficulties during our most recent upgrade. But the video is now up and features some of our very own bloggers, Janet (AKA Dr. Freeride) from Adventures in Ethics and Science, and Peter Lipson (AKA Dr. Pal) who contributes to Denialism Blog and regularly hosts thrilling podcasts. This week, Janet and Dr. Pal explore the ethics behind different issues in medicine and science such as conscience clauses (for example, in which pharmacists can withhold prescriptions from consumers), the…
Recently, a discussion has sparked on ScienceBlogs over how the word "addiction," could be used to describe some substances that aren't necessarily harmful such as antidepressants. Scicurious from Neurotopia points out that if a substance changes one's physical self, there will be physical effects if that drug is discontinued—a property of addiction. Likewise, PalMD from Denialism Blog suspects the negative nature of the word "addiction" may make drug companies hesitant to describe their products as such, even though it's accurate.