terrasig
Posts by this author
December 9, 2007
PZ Myers also noted this story that came via Brandon Haught of Florida Citizens for Science: a Florida Department of Education official used her professional affiliations (albeit via a personal e-mail account) to lobby against evolution being taught as the state updates its science educational…
December 8, 2007
We've been speaking about this issue on behalf of our lymphoma colleagues since late August.
But yesterday's New York Times (Alex Berenson) and Wall Street Journal's Health Blog (Jacob Goldstein) brought greater awareness to the issue of Medicare's proposal to cut reimbursement for "smart-bomb"…
December 8, 2007
I can't do any better than this today:
I finally got around to reading yesterday's Cancer Research Blog Carnival that I cited and was completely entranced by Matthew Zachary's essay in The Huffington Post about his long battle with medulloblastoma. It was posted originally in July and provides…
December 7, 2007
Yesterday, 6 December was the feast day of Saint Nicholas and that can only mean one thing: the newest batch was Samichlaus bier was brewed in Austria. Samichlaus - Swiss-German for 'Santa Claus' - is recognized widely as one of the world's rarest, finest, and strongest bottom-fermented, or lager…
December 7, 2007
I've been terribly remiss as of late in both promoting and submitting to blog carnivals. However, I wanted to draw your attention to an interesting new carnival and the latest edition of an old stalwart.
The Cancer Research Blog Carnival is hosted this week at nosugrefneb.com/weblog written by Ben…
December 5, 2007
Yet another example in today's press about dietary supplements contaminated, intentionally or accidentally, with prescription or unapproved drugs - in this case, anabolic steroids showing up in about 20% of supplements tested.
I was asked by a major news organization if this is the first time that…
December 5, 2007
A former research director for a complementary and alternative medicine program at a major academic medical center has just released a book that I must get my hands on. I just learned about "Snake Oil Science" by R. Barker Bausell from a Jerry Adler article in the current issue of Newsweek (10 Dec…
December 3, 2007
I was way behind on this story relative to the pharma blogosphere (John Mack's Pharma Marketing Blog, Ed Silverman's Pharmalot, and the WSJ Health Blog), but Montel Williams has created a PR disaster for Partnership for Prescription Assistance of the industry group, PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research…
December 3, 2007
With the help of the good people at Patients Against Lymphoma, we've been following the ruling by Medicare that costs of radioimmunotherapeutics for lymphoma would now only be reimbursed at less than the acquisition cost (CMS-1392-FC). So ridiculous is this proposition that Newsweek's Jonathan…
December 1, 2007
Today is World AIDS Day but I wish to relay the need for a different kind of help.
Terra Sigillata has just learned that HIV/AIDS researcher Dr Sonia Napravnik and her daughter Sophia were among those whose apartments were destroyed by fire Wednesday night in Carrboro, NC. Sonia is a research…
November 30, 2007
There's a great interview up at the website of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center's BT Catalyst with Dr Chris Brodie, associate editor of American Scientist magazine, a publication of the Sigma Xi scientific research society. Chris recently helped to organize a new organization called Science…
November 30, 2007
My colleague and guest wine blogger, Erleichda, wrote previously on his birthday trip to New Zealand's wine destinations. I accidentally posted his writings in reverse, with his description of wines of the Marlborough district here. Below was intended to be the first of the two columns.
Another…
November 28, 2007
...and we thank you.
If you look down yonder left, you'll see that my SiteMeter counter passed 100,000 visits earlier today.
To be precise, a visitor from the University of Edinburgh's Moray House Institute of Education dialed into ScienceBlogs' 'Last 24 Hours' channel at 2037 GMT and clicked on my…
November 28, 2007
This question, posed in 1965 by a Gator football coach to University of Florida renal physiologist J. Robert Cade, MD, PhD, led to the development of Gatorade and the tremendously successful sports drink industry.
Yesterday, the revered Dr Cade went to that Gatorade cooler in the sky, at age 80.…
November 27, 2007
Compounds in grapefruit juice inhibits an enzyme required for metabolism of nearly half of prescription drugs on the market. If you inhibit drug metabolism, would that allow you to take a lower (and cheaper) dose of one of those drugs, especially an expensive drug?
That is the proposition of a…
November 25, 2007
We discussed in a post the other day about the use of a class of anti-glaucoma drugs for cosmetic purposes to increase the number and thickness of eyelashes.
Well, we can always count on The Onion to provide us with levity and witty parody on current events.
I'm not sure what is more difficult:…
November 25, 2007
As I sat to write a post this morning, I became more engaged in a story in the New York Times magazine by Dr Daniel Carlat entitled, "Dr. Drug Rep." Joseph of Corpus Callosum recently commented here about being solicited to recommend fellow physicians in the local area and nationally who he…
November 23, 2007
I'm a little late today with The Friday Fermentable. I wanted to be able to report back from a local beer tasting event called Black Friday Beer Fest. In deference to today's major shopping day in the US (named Black Friday to denote that many businesses come out of the "red" due to the brisk…
November 22, 2007
For readers not in the US, today is Thanksgiving Day. Our friends to the north celebrated their harvest festival last month.
I'll be giving thanks today to my local Honeybaked Ham® franchise for making our little stay-at-home celebration that much easier.
As I also enjoy my British-crafted Samuel…
November 21, 2007
I was looking through more links tonight after posting earlier on the Polk County school board's intention to introduce intelligent design into the science curriculum.
I saw this post, An Open Letter to the Polk County, Florida School Board from The Austringer, Dr Wesley Elsberry. Turns out that…
November 21, 2007
All the kool kids are keeping their eyes on the Polk County, Florida, school board and their contention that 'intelligent design' should be taught alongside evolution in their public schools.
Fortunately, several states have groups of concerned citizens who contend that actual science should be…
November 20, 2007
I wrote about the general issue of eyelash-enriching "cosmeceuticals" on my Terra Sigillata back in July. Increasing the number and thickness of eyelashes is not some hokey magical wish - it is a known side effect buried in the prescribing information for the prescription glaucoma drugs,…
November 19, 2007
As we approach 100,000 visitors since joining ScienceBlogs I am amazed to still be getting 500-700 visits per month at the old home of Terra Sigillata, all without any promotion or new posts. The most-visited of the old posts is the following which appeared originally on 21 February 2006.
Much of…
November 17, 2007
Readers who are busting their butts doing basic and drug development research in pharmaceutical companies don't need this kind of alleged behavior from upper management - from Jeanne Whalen at the Wall Street Journal (online yesterday and in today's print edition) following up on a story first…
November 16, 2007
You just never know - some weeks you don't get The Friday Fermentable; other weeks you get two posts.
Well, several readers gave me the heads up this week about an NPR story about resveratrol supplements. You may remember that this is the chemical present in red wine that kills cancer cells in…
November 16, 2007
Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!
Yes, the 15th of November has arrived as have thousands of cases of a fresh, fruity wine, the Beaujolais Nouveaux. Grapes that were on the vine just a few short months ago have been heroically converted into a wine that has traditionally been rushed to Paris, and…
November 15, 2007
No..it's a false alarm. [***or not - see note added at end of post]
But I had to do a double-take last night when reading my e-mail notification of the new HealthCentral newsletter with the subject line:
Celebrate Alzheimer's Awareness Month; How risky is your sexual behavior?
For the grammar…
November 14, 2007
...is the title of a Newsweek article by Jonathan Alter posted online last night that draws more attention to the Medicare restriction on reimbursements for radioimmunotherapeutic (RIT) drugs used to treat lymphomas. Surgical oncologist, Orac, and I have spoken about this issue in the last few…
November 13, 2007
I got sidetracked today with activities in that thing called the meat world. So, I can only refer you to a very nice roundup of expert medical blogging over at RevolutionHealth and Dr Val and The Voice of Reason blog.
Dr Val (Val Jones, M.D.) has been a frequent and thoughtful commenter around…
November 11, 2007
The travesty has come true, according to Karl Schwartz and Betsy de Parry of Patients Against Lymphoma.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has gone ahead with their plans to slash by half reimbursements to hospitals for two radioimmunotherapy drugs. For many hospital,…