Medicine
retrospectacle | August 8, 2006Apparently, an increasing trend is "stem cell tourism"---but not for Alzheimer's or a spinal cord injury. No, rather for aging, wrinkles, cellulite, and general "rejuvenation." This is obviously quackery, as the methods they describe (which range from smearing dead cow cells as a facial, or direct injection of stem cells from an aborted fetus' liver) have not been substantiated, published, or un-biasedly proven to work.
Unfortunately, stem cell detractors are using this type of off-label, shallow usage of stem cells as an excuse to condemn all of stem cell therapy as morally degenerate and…
apalazzo | August 7, 2006I haven't done this in a while:
Below the fold you'll find links to an interview with Alan Parker editor of Nature Genetics, Boltzmann and entropy, Big Biology, Tanzanian society (as seen through a medstudent from the west) and a note on affirmative action.
Hsien Hsien Lei of Genetics and Health interviews Alan Parker, editor of Nature Genetics. Here's an excerpt (re:open access):
As for Nature, my guess is that it will remain a 'reader pays' journal for the foreseeable future. The primary reason is that it costs a great deal of money to produce. One thing that may not be apparent from the…
terrasig | August 7, 2006...all without being perceived as capitalistic, misogynistic, or otherwise demeaning to women?
This is an open thread for y'all because I have to go to a funeral and won't be able to oversee the discussion today.
I brought this point up over the weekend with my ScienceBlogs.com colleagues and it got such a passionate response that I thought I'd open it up to the blogosphere.
I have a very serious question (below) related to breasts, and I really hope the women bloggers and readers will weigh in. I know that there are many high-profile female bloggers out there with a heavy feminist worldview…
terrasig | August 2, 2006SciBlings Alex Palazzo (The Daily Transcript) and Mike the Mad Biologist have both held forth recently on Robert Weinberg's editorial in Cell. Weinberg, one of the big daddies of early oncogene research and mentor to some of the best cancer researchers of my generation, expressed his fears that the US investment in training biomedical researchers in the 1990s is going to waste as these trainees move through postdocs and toward faculty positions that simply do not exist. The problem: so-called "Big Biology" initiatives and failure to protect the basic mechanisms of investigator-initiated…
j7uy5 | July 29, 2006This is an archived post from September, 2005, posted here and now because I am away on vacation.
As
I go about my days, I get the impression that there is a lot of
confusion out there about the treatment of opiate abuse and dependence.
Wes Clark (not that Wes Clark, the other
one) has written an article to help us understand this nettlesome
issue.
First, I summarize some point from his article, and a
few others, then add a few bits of my own.
Dr. Clark provides us with some historical background in his article,
rev="review" href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/349/10/928">…
apalazzo | July 28, 2006In the August issue of The Scientist, there is an article entitle "The Inequity of Science" (Not online yet). It describes how the top academic institutions are getting more and more of the total NIH funding.
Between 1994 and 2004, in the rankings of universities and colleges according tototal R&D expenditures in biological sciences, the difference between the number one school and the 100th school more than doubled.
Echoing Bob Weinberg's commentary,
In 2005, the principal investigator on the biggest grant, Eric Lander at MIT, received more than $50 million, nearly seven times the…
oracknows | July 27, 2006I hadn't intended to mention this case again for a while, but an article in Stats.org brought up a point that, although I had somewhat alluded to it, I hadn't really explicitly addressed. It has nothing to do with the judicial decision, the Cherrixes' successful appeal for a new trial and the stay ordered by the higher court, or any the legal issues involved with the case.
It has to do with the atrocious reporting of this case by the mainstream media. In other words, it has to do with how the case has been framed, which has been essentially a near total success for the Cherrixes and those who…
purepedantry | July 26, 2006...depression.
This is related to something they make medical students memorize. When someone comes in with hypertension, it is always good to check whether the person has renal artery stenosis because this is one of the few causes of hypertension we can actually fix. Renal artery stenosis results in hypertension because your kidneys secrete hormones that are involved in maintaining your blood pressure. How much hormones they decide to secrete is determined largely by the blood pressure that is felt by your kidneys; thus, when you block blood flow to the kidneys, they become convinced…
mikethemadbiologist | July 26, 2006The American Medical Association has called for a temporary ban on all direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs. Sounds 'elitist'? Well, so are professional sports. But only an idiot would trust Madison Avenue over his or her doctor. (an aside: I'm not an MD. I just have the occassional good sense to listen to people who know what they are talking about).
From ScripNews (subscription only):
The American Medical Association is calling for a temporary ban on direct-to-consumer advertising for newly approved prescription drugs, with the length of the ban to be determined on a…
stcynic | July 25, 2006When Karl Rove told a Denver newspaper that Bush would exercise his first veto of the stem cell bill a couple weeks ago, he included one big whopper in his claim:
Recent studies, he said, show that researchers "have far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells."
This is a ridiculous fiction being told by the religious right constantly on this issue. They've taken the fact that adult stem cells are useful in some treatments (which is true) and exaggerated it beyond belief, now claiming that they have more promise than embryonic stem cells. But that is a claim that not…
tsmith | July 25, 2006 I've mentioned previously the potential role that mild or asymptomatic infections with influenza may play in transmission and evolution of the virus. Right now, most of our reports of H5N1 have been due to serious infections that caused a patient to seek medical care. These cases are the tip of the iceberg in a normal influenza outbreak, when most of us don't have physician-diagnosed influenza. Instead, we recognize the signs and symptoms, and stay at home to ride it out. Is this happening in Indonesia, Thailand, and elsewhere? For every person who shows symptoms of H5N1 infection, are…
oracknows | July 24, 2006Not surprisingly, since the court decided that Abraham Cherrix, a Virginia teen who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease at age 15, underwent chemotherapy, relapsed, and then refused to undergo any further chemotherapy, opting instead for an "alternative medicine" treatment known as the Hoxsey treatment, to be administered at the Biomedical Center in Tijuana, the blogosphere has been abuzz with chatter about the decision. Not surprisingly, I find myself in the minority in approving of the decision, even if I do so reluctantly. Indeed, not only do I find myself in the minority, but I find…
oracknows | July 22, 2006I tell you, I take a night off from blogging, not even glancing at the blog or my e-mail, instead falling into a deep slumber at 10 PM after The Dog Whisperer on TV, thanks to a somewhat stressful week and a large meal plus a beer, and what happens?
Abraham' Cherrix's uncle comments on the old blog and the legal decision regarding whether Abraham has to undergo chemotherapy is issued, three days later than originally anticipated, that's what! In this case, the judge decided that Abraham must report on Tuesday to undergo conventional therapy. Fortunately, I realize (most of the time, anyway)…
hrynyshyn | July 21, 2006This week's Science includes an interesting "forum" on the value of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), that wing of the U.S. National Institutes of Health charged with checking out whether or not herbal remedies and other medical techniques not sanctioned by MDs are worth taking.
The center's been around for about eight years now, and apparently not everyone thinks it's a wise use of $123 million of taxpayers' money every year. My first thought was: isn't it a good idea to apply the scientific method to testing the efficacy of echinacea, St. John's wort…
j7uy5 | July 20, 2006This is from a study published in the latest NEJM: The "Gender Gap" in
Authorship of Academic Medical Literature — A 35-Year
Perspective [
href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/355/3/281">abstract/
rev="review"
href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/3/281">full
text/
href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/3/310">editorial
(subscription required for full text and editorial)].
First, the good news:
During the past four decades, the participation of
women in medicine has increased dramatically. Women now represent 49
percent of all medical…
apalazzo | July 20, 2006From The Scientist: Public Concern for Private Funding.
More money generally means more science, and vice versa. But the source of the money - whether from public or industry well-springs - may be as important in determining the type of research that gets funded as well as the direction that research may take. During the last several years, the percentage of industry funding relative to public funding has grown (see Box). For example, industry funding of clinical trials rose from $4.0 billion in 1994 to $14.2 billion in 2003 (in real terms) while federal proportions devoted to basic and…
jlynch | July 18, 2006Press release follows:
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific organization, tonight urged U.S. President George W. Bush to uphold the U.S. Senate's approval of H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.
"We in the scientific community are hopeful that you will review this measure with an open mind and open heart and then sign it into law," AAAS leadership wrote in the letter to President Bush.
The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which would expand federal support for embryonic stem cell research, passed in the U.S.…
jrosenhouse | July 17, 2006Like all sensible people, I'm a huge fan of George Carlin. I regard him as the very best stand-up comedian, ever. Not only are his routines funny and insightful, but they are delivered so skillfully that you can learn a lot about good public speaking simply by studying his technique. I often tell people that Carlin (and Robin Williams) had a far greater impact on my teaching style than any math ed. specialist ever did. After all, stand-up comedians have to command an audience's attention for up to an hour at a time using only their words and their mannerisms. That's pretty much what math…
terrasig | July 17, 2006Get ready to be barraged by news of a proprietary pine bark extract exhibiting efficacy against attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Today's report by the French company that manufactures a maritime pine bark extract seems to be associated (see press release below fold) with Dr Steven Lamm, a clinical assistant professor at NYU Medical School, and based on results published in the journal, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
I don't believe this is actually "news" as stories such as this one appeared about a month ago. Hence, I fear that today's press release and satellite hook…
mementomori | July 15, 2006[Editor's note: this essay is adapted from a post first written on December 16, 2004)
The most influential mentor I ever had, who taught me how to chase and capture excellence in all aspects of patient care, and why giving one's best is the only goal worth pursuing in medicine, once told me that he had discovered a way to measure the merit of a doctor. He said, "Good doctors leave good tracks," by which he meant that one can always identify exceptional physicians by the "trail" of evidence they leave behind after their work is done - a ship's wake, if you will, that represents the effect…