Medicine
mementomori | December 12, 2007Beginning Jan. 1, Medicare will reimburse only $16,000 of the $30,000 total cost for hospitals to acquire and administer each treatment of radioimmunotherapy drugs. Currently, only two drugs -- Bexxar and Zevalin -- fall under this class of therapy.
What on earth is going on here? Why would our government reimburse cancer care providers for less than the actual cost of a new lymphoma treatment, not to mention the cost of the physicians, nurses, equipment and space needed in order to give the treatment at the correct dose, in the correct manner, flawlessly, without any adverse outcomes, with…
oracknows | December 11, 2007It's been a while since I've visited the cesspool that is Uncommon Descent, a.k.a. Bill Dembski's home for wandering sycophants, toadies, and lackeys. There's a good reason for this; I just get tired of the sheer stupidity that routinely assaults my brain every time I make the mistake of taking a look at UD's latest attempt to try to refute evolution. Worse, there's lots of other pseudoscience there these days, from the promotion of the use of cancer therapies that haven't been subjected to clinical trials yet to anthropomorphic global warming "skepticism." Yes, every time I peruse the posts…
oracknows | December 10, 2007Dr. Rashid Buttar is a quack. There, I've said it. It's my opinion, and there's lots of evidence to support that opinion. As you know, I seldom actually invoke the "q-word." Indeed, for the longest time after I started blogging I tended to go out of my way to avoid using it, even to the point of being a bit ridiculous, but in Dr. Buttar's case I now have little choice but to make my opinion of him plain.
I've noticed before that, as far as antivaccination cranks and the mercury militia go, when it rains it pours, and stories about such lunacy seem to come in waves. Weeks can go by without my…
oracknows | December 9, 2007Andrew Wakefield is an incompetent "scientist." Of that, there is no longer any doubt whatsoever, given how poorly he and his collaborators did the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) studies that he did looking for measles RNA sequences in colon biopsy specimens taken from autistic children, studies in which they failed to do even the most basic, rudimentary controls for detecting false positives due to contamination with plasmid DNA sequences. The harm that came from his now falsified findings of that study, in which he claimed that the MMR vaccine was associated with autism and…
oracknows | December 8, 2007Sorry, but I can't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude over this. Chelationist extraordinaire Dr. Rashid Buttar is, it would appear, in a bit of trouble:
A Huntersville doctor is facing charges of unprofessional conduct.
Dr. Rashid Buttar's alternative medicine clinic treats autism patients from the around the country, but tonight there are questions about his treatment of cancer patients.
The North Carolina Medical Board's allegations are spelled out in a 10 page document.
They could ultimately lead to the revocation of Dr. Buttar's medical license.
He is accused of offering therapies that…
terrasig | December 5, 2007A 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 2007).
To set the proper context, med bloggers like Orac, Dr. R.W., Panda Bear, MD, Sid Schwab, and we here at Terra Sig have been increasingly expressing concern about the seemingly uncritical integration of alternative medicine programs into some of North America's most respected medical schools…
oracknows | December 5, 2007The other village quack of the Chicago Tribune has decided to enter the breast cancer fray again.
No, I'm not talking about the main village quack of the Chicago Tribune. That would be Julie Deardorff. Rather, I'm talking about the Chicago Tribune's newly minted breast cancer crank, Dennis Byrne. We've met him before, parroting credulously an incredibly bad study claiming that it had found a slam-dunk association between abortion and breast cancer. How bad was the study? Well, it was so bad that it was published in that bastion of politically-motivated pseudoscience, the Journal of American…
sb admin | December 4, 2007by Susan F. Wood, PhDÂ
It's not often, if ever, that an FDA sponsored report calls out for more resources, more direct action and organizational change for FDA. The recently released report (PDF) by the Subcommittee on Science and Technology for the FDA Science Board does just that. Although I wouldn't necessary agree with all of the recommendations, and would call out for a few more, the report identifies some of the real needs at FDA for strengthened science. The FDA Science Board, an Advisory Committee to the FDA, has issued earlier reports, but none with the timeliness and…
oracknows | December 1, 2007The Buckeye Surgeon educates us with a case.
In brief, it's the case of an elderly woman with a clinical picture, including right upper quadrant pain and an elevated white blood cell count consistent with rip-roaring cholecystitis who was admitted to the medical service for her right upper quadrant pain. She underwent an ultrasound, which was consistent with rip-roaring cholecystitis, after which she was admitted to the medical service, which duly consulted the gastroenterology service. Then a CT scan was ordered, which showed a rip-roaring case of cholecystitis. Then the patient was bowel-…
scientificactivist | November 29, 2007Two weeks ago, on November 15th, researchers reported in the Journal of Translational Medicine (see citation below) that they had successfully isolated and characterized stem cells from menstrual blood. The researchers, Meng et al., were able to differentiate these cells--called Endometrial Regenerative Cells (ERCs)--into nine distinct cell types, and the stem cells displayed other encouraging characteristics (including rapid proliferation, unique expression of an embryonic stem cell marker, and particularly high production of certain growth factors and matrix metalloproteinases). These…
terrasig | November 27, 2007Compounds 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 company called Bioavailability Systems, featured in today's Wall Street Journal and alluded to on the WSJ Health Blog (yes, I cite the WSJ very often but only because they have some of the best medical and health reporting on topics well ahead of the MSM curve).
The intestines and the liver contain…
neurophilosophy | November 27, 2007A lengthy article in last weekend's Washington Post Magazine discusses the work of Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) who has almost completed the first phase of a clinical study into the use of ecstasy as a therapeutic tool for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Ecstasy (MDMA, or 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine) is a psychedelic and a stimulant which acts by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin, and, to a lesser extent, of dopamine and noradrenaline. It is illegal in most countries (it is classified as a Class A drug in the U.K. and a…
denialism | November 27, 2007Usually Deepak Chopra's nonsensical writings at the Huffington post about mind-body healing are so vague and bland I don't bother addressing them. The mind controls the body, the mind is powerful, blah blah blah, who cares right? Well, today Chopra pulled back the curtain and we see the crank within. It's a reminder that behind the facade of all the touchy-feely nonsense of the alties is a campaign against science and legitimate medical practice. We start with the standard quack appeal to the individual, which sounds nice, but in practice basically means they have no consistent method to…
oracknows | November 27, 2007
I was originally planning to do a real science post today. Indeed, there are at least two or three interesting studies that have been released in the last month or two that I've been meaning to write up, you know, to lose the snark and make this a real Science Blog. True, having a little fun deconstructing the silliness of homeopaths or antivaccinationists is educational (not to mention entertaining and so fun). However, very so often I feel the need to get serious, and over the last couple of weeks I think I let the snark run a bit more wild than usual, not counterbalanced as much with…
j7uy5 | November 26, 2007Using my new Firefox search box to search ScienceBlogs, I
learned that
href="http://www.nursece.com/onlinecourses/9012.html" rel="tag">Fetal
Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
href="http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/02/children_of_alcoholics_have_re.php">retards
neural growth,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/12/fetal_alcohol_syndrome_affects.php">screws
up the circadian clock, is the
href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/02/everything_i_know_about_the_dangers_of_d_1.php">subject
of moralistic cartoons, and that it
href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/…
apalazzo | November 23, 2007This week we learned about the latest results from the emerging field of induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS cells). I just wanted to give a few links and my latest thoughts on the subject.
What this field has given us is the ability to study how cells are programmed and how they are deprogrammed. I agree with Thomas Robey who writes:
.... most of science is not about designing cures! It's about asking questions and answering them. Goal-oriented science and translational research is what pays the bills because it captures our imagination. But when it comes down to the bottom line in…
oracknows | November 21, 2007I once blogged about an article attempting to address the very question in the title of this post, and I've also discussed in depth how messy the process of evidence-based medicine can be and why that provides an opening for purveyors of "alternative medicine" (my preferred term to describe it being "non-evidence-based medicine") to respond to complaints about the lack of evidence supporting their favored woo with a hearty but fallacious tu quoque.
One of the favorite claims of purveyors of non-evidence-based "alternative" medicine is that modern scientific medicine is actually not very…
palmd | November 21, 2007They media is often full of hype about "health foods". True "health food", to quote Michael Pollan, probably means, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.'' That being said, chemical compounds isolated from natural substances (foods included) are an important line of medical research and can lead to insights on the health effects of food, and on drug development. The latest issue of Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, has a lovely little article about the cardiac effects of chocolate---and who doesn't care about chocolate?
Reading a scientific article is often a…
clock | November 21, 2007There are 59 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the event. There are already 140 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at about 200). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
KT Vaughan is the Pharmacy Librarian and Clinical Assistant Professor in…
j7uy5 | November 20, 2007Any time something related to a
medical use for cannabis is found, it
makes headlines. Mostly, the interest is generated by the
relationship to an illegal drug. Sometimes, though, the media
do a decent job of reporting the real issue.
href="http://www.researchblogging.org/">Researchers
at the California
Pacific Medical Center Research Institute
have announced that one of the compounds found in cannabis,
cannabidiol,
inhibits a gene that is important for the growth and metastasis of
breast
cancer.
Note that this has nothing to do with medical marijuana, really.
Cannabidiol is not…