oracknows | January 28, 2009
If you've browsed the redesigned front page of ScienceBlogs, you'll see that our benevolent ScienceBlogs Overlords at Seed Magazine have started a project that they have so humbly termed The Rightful Place Project: Reviving Science in America, which is described thusly:
In his first speech as President-elect last November, Barack Obama reminded us of the promise of "a world connected by our own science and imagination." He recently stated, "promoting science isn't just about providing Resources--it's about protecting free and open inquiry... It's about listening to what our scientists have…
oracknows | January 27, 2009It looks like I've been sucked into another streak again.
Regular readers know that examining the claims of the antivaccine movement with skepticism, science, and critical thinking has been a theme of this blog from the very beginning. If there's one thing I've learned over the last four years, it's that vaccine news seems to come in streaks. Often weeks will pass without much, and, because the antivaccine wingnuttery over at, for example, The Huffington Post and Age of Autism is such a constant that it blurs into background noise, provoking my attention only when someone really brings the…
oracknows | January 26, 2009
When I mentioned a while back that, although I like awards as much as the next guy, I don't go actively seeking them, I wasn't kidding. As evidence that I wasn't kidding, I point out that, until some of you started letting me know about it, I had no clue that I had actually won the 2008 Medical Weblog Award for Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog of 2008. In fact, even though I do peruse Medgaget, the blog that hosts the competition, I had somehow missed the post last Friday announcing the winners.
Of course, it would have helped if the Medgadget guys would have shot me a quick e-mail.
In…
oracknows | January 26, 2009Remember the quack-friendly scammer Kevin Trudeau? Remember his book Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About? Back during the summer, he was fined $5 million and ordered not to produce or publish infomercials for products in which he had an interest. Given the huge profits he made from Natural Cures and his followup The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About, unfortunately, $5 million was nothing more than the cost of doing business. It didn't do one thing to deter Trudeau.
Maybe this will:
A federal judge has ordered infomercial marketer Kevin Trudeau to pay more than…
oracknows | January 26, 2009Beginning on Friday after my post expressing amazement at something as rare as a 70° F temperature in January (at least around my neck of the woods), namely an actual provaccine article in the Huffington Post, a number of you began sending me links to a story that I find most disturbing, a mini-tsunami that continued all weekend. In fact, it's so disturbing that I kept procrastinating all weekend until I wasn't even sure I was going to write about it at all. But the comments kept coming, and I realized once again that, once one gains a reputation as a go-to blogger about a certain topic,…
oracknows | January 25, 2009
Back in December, I pointed out a Norwegian movie that the Hitler Zombie definitely approves of: Dead Snow (or Død Snø in Norwegian). After all, how can you go wrong with Nazi zombies in a remote, snow bound area in Norway attacking the usual bunch of hapless but beautiful young people? I don't know about you, but that's all I ask for in a movie, even if I have to read subtitles or put up with dubbing.
Good news, fans of Nazi zombies! After a successful run at Sundance, Død Snø has a U.S. distribution deal:
U.S. rights to Tommy Wirkola's "Dead Snow" have been acquired by IFC Films.…
oracknows | January 25, 2009Well, it's frigid indeed this weekend around Castle Orac. I need something to warm the cockles of the circuits in the deepest, darkest depths of winter, and I know just the thing: A heapin' helpin' of the best skeptical blogging out there. Fortunately, the next meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is just around the corner, scheduled to hit the blogosphere on Thursday, January 29 over at Space City Skeptics.
So, skeptical bloggers (or bloggers who want to dip their toes into the skeptical pool), fire up your computers, start tapping those keyboards, and provide the material needed to make this a…
oracknows | January 24, 2009It's no secret that I'm a Mac geek, at least not to any of my readers, family, or friends.
Neither is it a secret at my job that I'm a Mac geek, mainly because, although the university where I'm faculty is perfectly fine with Macs, the cancer center where my laboratory, clinic, and office are housed is not. Indeed, one might even say it goes beyond that in that it borders on being Mac-hostile. Oh, the IT department doesn't actually forbid Macs (although until a recent change in organization it was clear to me that they would clearly very much like to do so), but, until the recent hire of one…
oracknows | January 23, 2009When it comes to science, I've always detested The Huffington Post.
Nearly four years ago, when Arianna Huffington's vanity group political blog went live, I was the first one to notice a most disturbing trend about it. As far as I knew at the time (or know now), I was the only one to have noticed that The Huffington Post had become a hotbed of antivaccine propaganda a mere three weeks after its launch. It was home to David Kirby, author of that paean to the mercury militia Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, A Medical Controversy and now antivaccine blogger on both…
oracknows | January 22, 2009The latest Change of Shift, the blog carnival for nursing, is up at Emergiblog. Be sure to check it out.
I've also been remiss in not mentioning that Dr. Val is hosting Grand Rounds. Enjoy that, too!
oracknows | January 22, 2009Being involved in clinical research makes me aware of the ethical quandaries that can arise. Fortunately for me, for the most part my studies are straightforward and don't provoke much in the way of angst over whether what I am doing is ethical or whether I'm approaching a line I shouldn't approach or crossing a line I shouldn't cross. However, there's lots of research that flirts with the unethical and sometimes even crosses the line. Institutional review boards are there to oversee the ethics of clinical trials and protect the human subjects who participate in them, but they don't always…
oracknows | January 21, 2009Regular readers here know that one of the themes of this blog is both a lament over the infiltration of quackademic medicine and a call to arms to fight it with science- and evidence-based medicine. However, to achieve this end, it won't be enough for middle-aged farts like myself to take up the banner. We need to influence the next generation of doctors. In order to provide our patients with the best care, we need to inculcate the knowledge of science and how to apply it to medical questions into the next generation. In short, we need to win over residents and medical students.
Medical…
oracknows | January 21, 2009I got home from work rather late last night; so for once I'll spare you my typical Orac-ian level of logorrhea today. Yes, I know how much the ravening hordes of my fans thirst for every bit of wisdom that flows from my keyboard to Seed Magazine's servers and from there to the world, but fear not. I didn't say I wouldn't quench that thirst. I just won't be taking as long as usual. Maybe a couple of quickies instead of the epic post.
My vastly inflated sense of self-importance, bloated beyond all reasonable sense of scale, aside, if there's one thing I've taken an interest in and written about…
oracknows | January 20, 2009I never thought I'd finally see the day, but George W. Bush is no longer President of the United States, and Barack Obama is. I have to say, I've paid attention to Presidential Inaugurations since 1981, and I can't recall one greeted with as much excitement, hope, and expectation. All around my university, in my medical center, and even in my cancer center, auditoriums were set up and the oath of office and inaugural speeches televised on the big screens there. At my cancer center, the auditorium was packed. Our cancer center director was there, as was most of the center leadership and many…
oracknows | January 20, 2009About a year ago, I discussed an article by Dr. Atul Gawande describing a quality improvement initiative that appeared to have been stalled by the Office for Human Research Protections and its apparent tendency to apply human subjects research protection rules to initiatives that are not exactly research using human subjects. The problem appeared to be an excessively legalistic and a "CYA" attitude more than a genuine concern for protecting human subjects. At the time, I was more concerned with the ethical and policy implications of the story rather than the actual research itself. After all…
oracknows | January 19, 2009This was so good that I just couldn't resist.
Yesterday, I did a quick post about an amusing bit of pareidolia, in which the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus were seen in a Lava Lamp. Apparently, an Australian man going by the pseudonym of John Smith noticed the shape in the wax as he fired up a brand spanking new Lava Lamp, recognized it for the Holy Miracle that it was, and shut off the lamp before Satan's heat could melt the apparition. He then stayed quiet for over a year and then announced his discovery to all the world. Naturally, I and other skeptics, particularly you, my readers, were not…
oracknows | January 19, 2009I almost feel sorry for homeopathy Jeremy Sherr. Almost. You see, he is busily learning a lesson that HIV/AIDS denialist Celia Farber learned a couple of weeks ago, namely that, unlike the fictional nation of Oceania in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, memory holes do not work very well in the Internet age.
I'll backtrack a bit and explain. Last week, several readers sent me reports about a homeopath named Jeremy Sherr, who apparently in November went to Tanzania in Africa and has been busted by the skeptical blogosphere for proposing on his blog Jeremy's Journal from Africa completely…
oracknows | January 18, 2009Let's see.
We've seen the Virgin Mary on trees, under a freeway overpass in Chicago, a window in Perth Amboy, NJ, and even in the brain. We've seen Jesus himself show up on toast, on a piece of sheet metal, on a potato chip, on a pierogi, on a ceiling tile, and even on a cat. Heck, we've even seen Elvis Presley on a rock and Pope John Paul II in a flame.
What could be left?
Stupid Evil Bastard tells me it's Lava Lamps, maaaan:
AN Australian man says the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus have appeared in his lava lamp and ever since the "miracle" his life has been blessed.
The man who identified…
oracknows | January 17, 2009Everyone agrees that it was an amazing demonstration of pilot skill, combined with the rapid response of a large number of people, that allowed all 155 passengers and crew members of a U. S. Airways flight that hit a flock of birds to do a controlled crash into the Hudson River to survive and be rescued from the icy waters. Many are calling it a miracle, even though, more than anything else, it was the skill of a seasoned pilot that salvaged life from death.
So where was God in all this? Why did he allow the flight to hit a bunch of birds, which disabled both of its engines?
Apparently God…
oracknows | January 16, 2009I hate to see this. I really do.
I really hate it to see people who think they're doing a good thing, who think they're raising money for a worthy charity, totally clueless that what they are doing is supporting the rankest pseudoscience and quackery. Here's an example from my hometown of Detroit. It's a story about a woman who's going to raise money for what she thinks is autism awareness and research at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this coming week:
When it comes to dressing for the North American International Auto Show Charity Preview, attendee Val McFarland is…