oracknows | August 26, 2010I don't know if it's confirmation bias, faulty memory, or if my individual impression is correct, but it seems to me that over the years I've been blogging that stories like this one seem to be becoming depressingly more common:
Getting inoculated for diseases such as whooping cough and measles used to be a childhood rite of passage that few questioned. Now with shifting parental attitudes about vaccine safety, a growing number of California children are entering kindergarten without shots.
The trend worries public health officials because of the link between immunization rates and infectious…
oracknows | August 25, 2010Having taken note of my little missive yesterday about New York Times health reporter Tara Parker-Pope and her utter credulity towards the woo that is acupuncture, Dr. R. W. makes an observation:
A number of years ago I ran across Science Education in Preparation for the Ministry. The premise of the document, written by pathologist and teacher Ed Friedlander, MD, was that because members of the clergy are often called on to speak in areas where morality and ethics interface with science, they should have some prerequisite knowledge. Orac's latest example of credulous and sloppy medical…
oracknows | August 25, 2010What the hell is going on with The New York Times' health reporting?
I've had my share of disagreements with the way that the NYT has covered various health issues over the years that I've been blogging, but I don't recall ever having seen it embrace pseudoscience. I can recall being a bit miffed at some of the articles that the NYT has published about biomedical research and its various perceived failings. On the other hand, I've also praised the NYT reporting on various issues, such as medical radiation and the risks it can pose. But lately, it seems, the NYT has gone into the crapper with…
oracknows | August 24, 2010I tell ya, I go away for a few days and something always seems to happen that I'd be all over if I were at home and blogging normally. Either something major happens in the anti-vaccine movement or there's a new study being touted by woos or womthing else big happens. In the old days, I'd try to cover it anyway, but lately I've learned just to let it go until I get back home. If I'm still interested in it, the end result will usually be better, and if I'm not still interested in it then it's probably better that I never bothered writing about it anyway. This particular bit of blog material…
oracknows | August 23, 2010
One of the main topics that I've covered over the last four or five of laying down a swath of not-so-Respectful Insolence directed at pseudoscience is the relatively rapid, seemingly relentless infiltration of pseudoscience into what should be bastions of science-based medicine (SBM), namely medical schools and academic medical centers promoted by academics who should, but apparently don't, know better. This infiltration has been facilitated by a variety of factors, including changes in the culture of medical academia and our own culture in general, not to mention a dedicated cadre of…
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oracknows | August 20, 2010Here we go again.
Apparently, trying to bounce back from the humiliation of having had its plan to do a music and comedy fundraiser with Jill Sobule as one of the headliners shot down when Sobule found out that Generation Rescue is an "autism organization" that supports anti-vaccine pseudoscience like that of Andrew Wakefield and Mark and David Geier and quite correctly decided to withdraw, Generation Rescue is at it again with an event it's calling Comedy for Kids with Autism.
According to the mass e-mail I received:
Join us Saturday, September 11th at the Third Annual "Comedy for Kids with…
oracknows | August 19, 2010At the risk of once again irritating long time readers who've hear me say this before, I can't resist pointing out that, of all the various forms of "alternative medicine" other than herbal medicines (many of which are drugs, just adulterated, impure drugs), acupuncture was the one treatment that, or so I thought, might actually have a real therapeutic effect. Don't get me wrong; I never bought magical mystical mumbo-jumbo about "meridians" and "unblocking the flow of qi" (that magical mystical life energy that can't be detected by scientists but that practitioners of woo claim to be able to…
oracknows | August 18, 2010There's so much horrible reporting on vaccines and the whole manufactroversy that promulgates the myth that vaccines somehow cause autism through a combination of confusing correlation with causation, bad science, quackery, and misrepresenting autism that it's gotten harder for me to be sufficiently irritated to write about it. When I see yet another another example of credulous reporting, it has to be either truly egregious to the point of catching my attention above the baseline noise of stories presenting anti-vaccine pseudoscience as though there were any truth to it or somehow illustrate…
oracknows | August 17, 2010...you might want to check out this talk by a certain "friend" of this blog, as well as the reception to follow (although why anyone would want to pay any money to hang out with him, I have no idea). A little birdie tells me it'll be pretty good.
oracknows | August 16, 2010Over the years, I've written a lot about cell phones and the scientifically highly implausible claim that radio waves from cellular telephones can lead to brain cancer and other health problems. For example, two years ago, when the then director of the respected University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman issued a warning to the faculty and staff of UPCC to limit their cell phone use because of the risk of cancer, I had a definite bone to pick with him. The evidence upon which Dr. Herberman based his hysterical warning, which was duly picked up by the press and spread…
oracknows | August 15, 2010Thanks to Autism News Beat, I've found the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! episode Vaccination in a streaming form. I have two warnings. First, if you're not familiar with Penn & Teller, you should be prepared for lots of profanity, including liberal use of the F-word. There is also one scene with a topless woman near the end. If you're easily offended, then you probably shouldn't watch. You have been warned. Second, you have to hit the arrow directly in order not to go to the website hosting the streaming video:
I have to say, I've rarely seen a more visually effective way of portraying…
oracknows | August 14, 2010Here's a rather interesting (and telling) comment that, because it showed up on an old post, many readers might have missed:
As a practicing acupuncturist I can only say that my sham techniques have frequently and often created such a powerful placebo effect that many patients coming to my office having exhausted "allopathic" cures find quick and lasting relief.
Some doctors, having been impressed by my results have actually started referring patients to me.
The real sham is the belief that Western Medicine has pure scientific roots that back up every treatment. If only it were the case (for…
oracknows | August 13, 2010After nearly six years subjecting the world to my meandering and often incredibly verbose stylings, I'm now what you would call an established blogger. Even more than that, I'm a reasonably high traffic blogger, at least in the medical blogosphere. What that means is that I get a lot of e-mail. A lot. While I do look at each and every e-mail that finds its way into the in box of one of my accounts, there's no way I can respond to them all. In order to save time, I look for shortcuts, and one of those shortcuts is not to devote more than a second or two to e-mails that are obvious sales…
oracknows | August 12, 2010It was nearly a month ago when I first marveled at how nonsense could be so well-organized. My marvel was expressed at the awesomeness that was the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense (which, by the way, is now available in "sanitized" versions, as well as versions in other languages). It turns out that Crispan's effort has inspired one of my readers to try his hand at this whole organizating nonsense thing. This blog being what it is and all and his proclivities being what they are, he decided to create...drumroll, please...The Periodic Table of Vaccine Rejectionism, which he's given me…
oracknows | August 12, 2010It's finally here! The long expected episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, in which the boys take on the anti-vaccine movement in their usual inimitable fashion, will premiere tonight on Showtime at 10 PM. It's even the eighth season finale, which is appropriate. If there's a form of "bullshit" other than the irrationality that is the anti-vaccine movment that represents a threat to public health more profound, I have a hard time thinking of it, and it's hard to believe that Penn and Teller did nearly eight seasons of their show without taking it on.
Here's a preview:
Unfortunately,…
oracknows | August 11, 2010...in not pointing out that one of my favorite blogs from the "old days" (as in four years ago) is back. The Second Sight, which closed up shop in 2007, reappeared a couple of months ago. It's as great as ever. Check it out.
oracknows | August 11, 2010Having spent the last couple of days dealing with pure woo, such as germ theory denialism and naturopathic quackery, I think now's as good a time as any to move on to a more serious topic.
One of the most important aspects of science is the publication of scientific results in peer-reviewed journals. This publication serves several purposes, the most important of which is to communicated experimental results to other scientists, allowing other scientists to replicate, build on, and in many cases find errors in the results. In the ideal situation, this communication results in the steady…
oracknows | August 10, 2010Yesterday, I wrote a rather lengthy post about germ theory denialism. As I put it, yes, there really are people who don't accept the germ theory of disease. As part of my Orac-ian length discussion (well over 4,000 words), I had a bit of fun with a video done by a hapless (is there any other kind?) naturopath named "Dr. Shawn." Our new buddy Dr. Shawn laid down a heapin' helpin' of napalm-grade burning stupid in the form of only the finest germ theory denialism coupled with some truly brain dead analogies, not to mention a whole lot of hating on swamps. Last night, exhausted by an even longer…
oracknows | August 9, 2010The longer I'm in this whole skepticism thing, the more I realize that no form of science is immune to woo. For example, even though I lament just how many people do not accept evolution, for example, I can somewhat understand it. Although the basics of the science and evidence supporting the theory of evolution as the central organizing principle of all biology, much of the evidence is not readily apparent to those who don't make it a calling to study biology, evolution, and speciation. It's not like, for example, gravity, which everyone experiences and of which everyone has a "gut level"…