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May 23, 2008
By Sarah Vogel
On Wednesday, May 14 the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing on Plastics Additives in Consumer Products to discuss the safety of two chemical compounds, bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, in consideration of new legislation and calls for regulatory…
May 23, 2008
Over at sciencebasedmedicine.com, Mark Crislip has a great post on the history of medical advances. First, go read it. WAIT! Don't forget to come back and read the rest of my post! OK, you can go now.
Good. Welcome back.
There was some talk a while back about "the end of science". That was an…
May 22, 2008
Here's an interesting one for ya. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting on a vaccine injury case filed by an Atlanta couple. The story is familiar and sad---a child starts off as a normal baby, and eventually develops a devastating neurologic illness. Based on the fact that symptoms of…
May 22, 2008
John McCain has succumbed to sanity---or perhaps to political expediency. Either way, he has finally rejected the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee. If you'll recall, Hagee is one of those wacko cult leaders on the right-hand side of the Evangelical movement (I hope). He hates Catholics, and…
May 22, 2008
For the third time in eight months, workers from the Getchell gold mine* near Winnemuca, NV have seen a co-worker killed on-the-job. First was Mr. Curtis L. Johnson, 36, a roof-bolter, who was killed on August 28, 2007, when part of the mine collapsed on him.  Next was Mike Millican, 43, who…
May 22, 2008
By Ally Petrilla
I read the Jackson Sun's (Tennessee) headline "Churches 'go green' as they as they aim to protect God's creation from more harm" and said to myself, "Finally!" I am not that excited that my home state is catching the Go Green bug (although that's a great thing, too!); I was…
May 22, 2008
More than three years after the blast at BP's Texas City refinery killed 15 workers and injured many others, an independent monitor reports that the company has made "substantial progress" in safety at its U.S. refineries, but that it still has many improvements to make. Kristen Hays reports for…
May 21, 2008
I almost forgot! It's my blogiversary! On May 21st of 2007, I opened my Wordpress blog after keeping a few notes on Blogger, which I didn't love. I started out blogging about the abomination that is Conservapedia, added my own medical musings that I had collected over the years, and then…
May 21, 2008
For our readers in the DC area, there are two upcoming events featuring David Michaels speaking about Doubt is Their Product: How Industryâs Assault on Science Threatens Your Health:
Center for American Progress reading
Wednesday, May 28, 12:30 â 1:30pm
1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
(You need to RSVP…
May 21, 2008
A rather opinionated reader made me aware of a disturbing issue. In Connecticut--the state whose city of Lyme gave the name to the tick-borne disease--the Attorney General decided that the nation's foremost infectious disease experts have their heads up their arses. Apparently responding to…
May 21, 2008
The story of asbestos in this country ought to serve as a cautionary tale: A seemingly miraculous fiber was widely introduced into common consumer products; only after it was already in millions of homes did the general public realize that it causes a particularly terrible form of cancer. Now,…
May 20, 2008
New diseases are pretty rare these days. It used to be that a good observer could travel to the great unknown and acquire/discribe scads of new (to them) diseases. In the interconnected world of the present, "new" diseases spread rather quickly, and become old. When I was a young attending…
May 20, 2008
Over the past few years, itâs become harder to access several sources of useful, up-to-date information about the substances weâre exposed to. There were the EPA library closures; the changes in Toxics Release Inventory reporting requirements; and a dramatic slowdown in the pace of Integrated Risk…
May 20, 2008
At a recent Senate hearing, former OSHA Assistant Secretary Jerry Scannell (1989-1993) described the pressure he often felt, especially from lawyers inside and outside the agency, to settle inspection and fatality-investigation cases by using âdiscount factorsâ to reduce monetary penalties. …
May 19, 2008
The NIH announced today that it is launching its "Undiagnosed Diseases Program". This program will evaluate patients who are referred by physicians. They will also ask for input from so-called advocacy groups.
This should be interesting. I'm sure they will be receiving requests from people…
May 19, 2008
As discussed yesterday, former NIH director Dr. Bernadine Healy has been saying some very strange things lately. Since crank-ism doesn't usually pop up out of nowhere, I decided to poke around a little. In an amazing co-incidence, some of Healy's forays into the world of crankery neatly parallel…
May 19, 2008
Nathan Dove, an underground coal miner, was electrocuted on Friday night at Massey Energy's Aracoma/Alma mine in Melville, Logan County, WV. Mr. Dove was 24 years old.Â
This is the same mine which was given a safety award by MSHA about a month ago (see "Safety Awards Gone Bad" ) and in January…
May 19, 2008
A fair number of people have "Ah-ha!" moments, but how many actually take those nuggets of brilliance and pursue them?Â
One man --an inventor of sorts who I came to know because of the Sago disaster---has done just that. While watching the rescue efforts at the WV Sago mine unfold on…
May 18, 2008
I love Saturday mornings. I usually get up early, make coffee, hang out with my daughter. Before my daughter wakes up and makes me change the channel, I usually catch a few minutes of CNN, which, at that time of day, features fellow Michigander Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Today, he started out talking…
May 17, 2008
MarkH recently gave us a case to play around with. Since this is usually great fun, I thought we could try another one. I'll start you off with very little information, and I'll answer any questions you bring up.
I'll warn you that this one is complex, and shows off the type of intricate problems…
May 16, 2008
What's new at the FDA?
Ed Silverman at Pharmalot reports on FDA plans to spend some of its user-fee money on post-marketing safety activities.
Merrill Goozner at GoozNews warns that the FDA is scrapping the Helsinki Declaration on protecting human subjects.
Jacob Goldstein at WSJ's Health Blog…
May 15, 2008
There's been much written around here about the NYT's David Brooks' foray in to non-materialist neuroscience. Well, today the letters to the editor are in, and some of them are interesting (although most aren't particularly sophisticated).
One in particular highlights some failures we've had as…
May 15, 2008
After dinner last night at a local tavern, I asked the waiter for a container to carry home our leftovers.  He promptly returned with a No. 5 plastic container (damn!).  Have you ever looked at the carry-out containers you receive from your local restaurants?  Are they made of a…
May 15, 2008
A few months ago, I gave you a short primer on the immunology of vaccines. It's time now for another short, oversimplified primer, this time on the immunology of HIV. This was originally up on the old blog, but it will provide some necessary background for upcoming posts (I think).
HIV denialists…
May 14, 2008
The new Tangled Bank is up over at The Beagle Project, and as usual, it's a great read.
Also, I want to give a quick shout-out to my internet buddy Ames who's hit the blogosphere running, so to speak, with his first carnival post.
May 14, 2008
by David Egilman, MD, MPH
I just finished watching the Waxman hearings on FDA preemption and must comment on Christopher Shays' (R-CT) comments. Christopher Shays is the last remaining Republican congressman from New England. Hopefully the November elections will result in the extinction of…
May 14, 2008
For the Christian Science Monitor, Marilyn Gardner writes about pregnant women who stay on the job until the day their babies are due (or even until the minute they go into labor) and start working again soon after their babies' births, because they're unable to take more time off. The Family…
May 13, 2008
An op-ed in the Baltimore Sun introduced me to a new use for the term "Iron Triangle," this one pertains industries and organizations involved in food aid. In "It's Time to Stop a Tragic Waste," David Kohn writes how hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. food aid is squandered on subsidies to…
May 13, 2008
Well, I'm back from a great vacation, and buried under an avalanche of work. Just to give you a hint of what an internist actually does...
My office schedule is full---really full. Everybody needs to see me, plus the various sick people I have to squeeze in. It's great; being busy is fun, but it…
May 13, 2008
In the final leg of a long and costly lawsuit against the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), U.S. district judge Hugh Lawson ruled in favor of ACGIH, dismissing claims by the National Mining Association and others* that the non-profit, scientific organization…