oracknows | March 13, 2008I happen to be in Chicago right now attending the annual meeting of the Society of Surgical Oncology. It's a meeting that I try to make it to almost every year, and usually it's a necessary update to my knowledge base. Consequently, I only just this morning noticed my fellow ScienceBloggers Mark Hoofnagle, Mark Chu-Carroll, and P.Z. Myers piling on the latest example of the sexist misogyny that is Vox Day, this time in (where else) WorldNetDaily, in an article entitled The real assault on science. Vox's article, in essence, views the application of Title IX to science education to increase…
oracknows | March 13, 2008As an NIH-funded surgeon/scientist, I just had to read this report at BrokenPipeline.org when I became aware of it, courtesy of Bora and Drugmonkey. Basically, it describes how bleak the NIH funding situation has become, particularly for young investigators. The report (PDF) comes from several prominent research universities and warns that we are at risk of losing a generation of new biomedical researchers. Even taking into account the knowledge that this report is anything but unbiased (indeed, it is explicitly in favor of increased NIH funding), the situation it paints is still pretty grim…
oracknows | March 12, 2008Having just perused the 82nd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle over at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes, I was left with one question? Was the Founder of the Circle, the not late but still lamented St. Nate (mainly because he left the blogosphere and took his blog down) God? Is Orac his son? And what is the significance of all this prophecy and religious imagery?
It's all so confusing.
The only way to find out is to check it out. The kid's got promise.
Next up is an experienced host of the Skeptics' Circle, Mike over at Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant (and, believe me, the title of the blog is…
oracknows | March 12, 2008After a bit of ranting earlier this week, I thought now would be a good time to cool it down a bit, if only for a moment. There's plenty more out there to rant about, but I'm intentionally ignoring it, if only for a day (or even half a day). If there's one thing I've learned about blogging in the three years I've indulged in this little habit of mine, it's that a blogger has to mix things up. Too many rants in a row, and even I start to get bored. And if I'm bored you're almost certainly bored.
We wouldn't want that, now, would we?
So it was with great interest that I came across, albeit…
oracknows | March 11, 2008Buried in yesterday's post was a link to a post on the Science Business blog, which is one of the blogs of Forbes magazine that was a dangerous gratification to my ego in that it mentioned this humble blog as one of the Autism Debate Go-To Blogs. Although Matthew Harper, Associate Editor at Forbes, left out three go-to blogs about autism that probably surpass this blog (namely, Left Brain/Right Brain, Neurodiversity, and Autism News Beat), Harper did make an interesting observation about yours truly:
Respectful Insulence is written by a surgeon who goes by the nom-de-blog Orac. He blogs on…
oracknows | March 11, 2008You may remember from yesterday that I wrote about a concerted propaganda effort by antivaccinationists to torture the facts and science behind a case of a girl with a rare mitochondrial disease whose condition may have been exacerbated by vaccination, resulting in an encephalopathy with some autism-like symptoms. Actually, I had had in mind an entirely different topic for yesterday, but news events drove me. Basically, I couldn't stand all the B.S. I saw emanating from antivaccinationists on news broadcasts and radio, and I had to do my little part to counter it. Fortunately (or…
oracknows | March 10, 2008I have no idea if this will post or not. Even so, I'll try. It turns out that ScienceBlogs is experiencing technical difficulties and has been since very early this morning. No one can comment (not even me), and some bloggers can't post (although apparently PZ can).
I have no idea when commenting capability will be restored, which is a shame because today's post would likely have provoked some interesting comments. On the other hand, it would likely have attracted antivaccinationists as well. Oh, well...
ADDENDUM: The technical glitches seem to have been resolved.
oracknows | March 10, 2008Damn you, mercury militia.
I had had another topic entirely in mind for this week's post, but, as happens far too often, news events have overtaken me in the form of a story that was widely reported towards the end of last week. It was all over the media on Thursday evening and Friday, showing up on CNN, Larry King Live, the New York Times, and NPR. It happens to be the story of a girl from Georgia named Hannah Poling whose case before the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which had originally part of a much larger proceeding known as the Autism Omnibus, was settled. This settlement…
oracknows | March 9, 2008...Wiley explains:
That about sums it up, as do the rest of the questions in the comic's poll.
oracknows | March 8, 2008Yesterday was annoying.
It started out hearing about the vaccine injury case conceded by the government in a story on NPR on during my drive into work. As I walked through the clinic waiting area on the way to my lab, the TVs in the waiting rooms were all on CNN, where--you guessed it!--there was more ignorant blather about how the government supposedly had "conceded" that "vaccines cause autism." I'll give the Polings and the antivaccinationists who are trying to use their case (with, apparently, them as willing accomplices) as a propaganda tool, they're good propagandists. Try as I might, I…
oracknows | March 7, 2008I really have no idea how valid this is (I suspect not very), but every blogger likes a bit of ego stroking from time to time, and I'm no different. So, take this with an enormous grain of salt, but somehow on a new system of blog ranking on Wikio, Respectful Insolence is ranked #8 among science blogs and #466 among general blogs.
What this means, I have no idea, particularly given that the blog doesn't show up at all in the Health section. I suppose I can console myself that I'm ranked #3 on the Medicine Blog Directory. Again, I have no idea what this means; so take it with a huge grain of…
oracknows | March 7, 2008It's that time again. Well, not quite yet. But it soon will be. That's right; everyone's favorite blog carnival the Skeptics' Circle is fast approaching and is scheduled to land at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes next Thursday, March 13. (I have to say, I like the blog name!) But Bing McGhandi needs your help to pull it off. He needs some seriously good examples of blog posts applying skepticism and critical thinking skills to a question that can be resolved with evidence. General guidelines for what the Skeptics' Circle is about and what kinds of posts belong in the Circle can be found here…
oracknows | March 7, 2008Sometimes my readers save my butt.
There I was earlier this week, looking through my Folder of Woo, as is my wont, and oddly enough nothing much was floating my boat. I know, I know, I've started this little weekly exercise before lamenting a lack of enthusiasm for the woo of which I am aware. Then as before then, I briefly wondered whether perhaps I had exhausted all the interesting woo. That seemed highly unlikely, given that I've only been at this about 20 months or so. After all, the woo supply is seemingly inexhaustible, and if I ever got tired of medical woo, there are so many other…
oracknows | March 6, 2008There's an idiotic poll up at Larry King Live with the question: "Do you believe vaccines cause or contribute to autism?" Idiotic, because it's science that says whether or not vaccines cause or contribute to autism. Whether the public thinks they do or not is irrelevant to the biological, medical, and clinical science that say, to the best of our knowledge, they do not.
Even so, please go tell him the real science about vaccines and autism. The pseudoscientists have already stacked the deck, and clearly antivaccinationists are voting, as the numbers are running around 80% to 20% in favor of…
oracknows | March 6, 2008I should have seen this one coming a mile away in light of the concession of vaccine injury in the case of one child that led to the incredibly shrinking causation claim when it comes to vaccines and autism. Having had it conclusively demonstrated through several large studies in multiple countries that mercury in vaccines does not cause autism (nor do vaccines themselves), the mercury militia are rapidly changing course. No longer is autism a "misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning."
Now it's a "misdiagnosis for mitochondrial diseases."
Or it soon will be. Just wait. The new propaganda from the…
oracknows | March 6, 2008Yesterday was a rather long day, starting with a long commute in the morning, followed by a long day in the office mainly doing grant paperwork, and capped off by getting home late. Even so, I couldn't ignore this particular story for two reasons. First, it's about so-called "alternative" medicine. Second, it's about Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer and the creative, if at times arrogant and abusive, creative genius behind Apple's recovery from the brink of bankruptcy 11 years ago to its current situation, where its computers are cool; its operating system rocks; and it rules over the…
oracknows | March 5, 2008Perusing the news early this morning, I noticed an article on ABC News about placebos. One thing I found interesting about it was that it was a story about a research letter to JAMA, not a full study. Heck, there isn't even an abstract.
Even so, the study was rather interesting and described thusly:
The more expensive your pain medications are, the better the relief you get from taking them -- even if they're fake.
That's according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which suggests that sugar pills labeled as expensive drugs relieve pain better…
oracknows | March 5, 2008File this one under: "It seemed like a good idea at the time." It's a story that I couldn't resist because it combines my interest in skepticism with my interest in World War II history. Too bad there wasn't a way to throw some medicine in there as well; otherwise I could have had a trifecta.
Yesterday, I was sent a news story that demonstrates how a seemingly good idea can go horribly wrong. In the deepest, darkest depths of World War II, in 1940 and 1941, when Britain's very survival as a nation was in doubt as the Blitz pummeled its cities and even the stoutest Englishman, alone in at…
oracknows | March 4, 2008I saw this and was going to write about it, but it turns out that Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata beat me to it. Basically, the makers of Airborne have been slapped down bigtime for false advertising:
WASHINGTON--The makers of Airborne--a multivitamin and herbal supplement whose labels and ads falsely claimed that the product cures and prevents colds--will refund money to consumers who bought the product, as part of a $23.3 million class action settlement agreement. The company will pay for ads in Better Homes & Gardens, Parade, People, Newsweek, and many other magazines and newspapers…
oracknows | March 4, 2008If there's one type of so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" that I've always been very up front about, it's that I consider homeopathy to be the ultimate in pseudoscientific twaddle when it comes to CAM. The reasons should be obvious to anyone with a background in basic science. After all, homeopathy is nothing more than the most magical of magical thinking writ so large that it's a wonder than anyone can believe it.
Think about it. What are the two main principles of homeopathy? The first is "like cures like," which postulates on the basis of the prescientific observations of…