oracknows | January 16, 2008It's been a while since I've dealt with creationists trying to claim either that evolutionary theory is not relevant to the problem of microbial resistance to antibiotics or, even worse, making really bad medical recommendations on the basis of their interpretation of evolution.
This time around RPM has posted a nice article on Competitive Release and Antibiotic Resistance that suggests a possible way that we can use evolutionary theory to prolong the useful life of antibiotics before resistance evolves. The results explained by RPM remind me of an article I blogged about several months ago,…
oracknows | January 15, 2008
Today is a very sad day around my lab.
I've just been informed that one of my scientific heroes, the man whose work inspired me to enter the research area that I entered, namely tumor angiogenesis, died last night. Yes, sadly, Dr. Judah Folkman reportedly died of a heart attack last night.
I had the honor of meeting Dr. Folkman on two or three separate occasions, one of which was for a laboratory meeting that involved discussion of our lab's work. A self-effacing and humble man, he was a true scientist, always questioning, always thinking of new hypotheses to test based on answers that…
oracknows | January 15, 2008Perusing the skeptical medical blogosphere, I came across some rather amusing, but nonetheless informative, videos from the 1950s about medical quackery. There are a number of aspects of these videos that are a bit unsettling to modern viewers, such as the "doctor knows best" paternalism, naïve faith in the AMA and other medical organizations, the utter seriousness, the cheesy reading of lines, and a rah-rah cheerleading for science and technology über alles. On the other hand, as Steve Novella points out, there was a refreshing directness about how the government viewed dubious medical…
oracknows | January 14, 2008Sadly, today would have been the day that the new season of 24 would have started. Even though after the first five or six episodes last season stunk bad enough to knock the proverbial buzzard off a manure wagon, I'm still a sucker for the show and had high hopes that it could stage a turnaround this season. Unfortunately, the writer strike intervened. That doesn't mean, however, that we bereft 24 fans can't still have some fun. If Flying Spaghetti Monster worshipers can have Talk Like A Pirate Day, why can't we have Talk Like Jack Bauer Day? The rules are easy, and here are some samples:
Co-…
oracknows | January 14, 2008I'd be remiss if I didn't note that Mark Hoofnagle of denialism.com has exited the rarified (and much less stressful world) of the laboratory and has dived headlong right into the clinic again, starting out with his surgery rotation.
As an old geezer (OK, middle-aged; it just feels old when each year's crop of new interns looks younger and younger), I'm amazed that he has any time at all to blog. Certainly, back in the day when giants walked the earth, such blogging would have been unlikely at best. It must be the 80 hour work week. In any case, he's made some observations about surgery, many…
oracknows | January 14, 2008I haven't written before about the tragic case of Katie McCarron, the three year old autistic girl whose mother killed her in May 2006. It's an incredibly sad tale, and others have covered it better. However, the trial started last week, and on Friday there was some testimony that suggests an effect of all the antivaccination fear-mongering that blames autism on either mercury in thimerosal-containing vaccines (a contention against which strong evidence was published just last week, to add to all the other studies that show no link between thimerosal and autism) or vaccines in general. Indeed…
oracknows | January 13, 2008...at Elijah Wood's elaborating on plans to adapt J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit to the big screen in not one but two movies. I don't know if he knows what he's talking about or not, even if he is buddies with Peter Jackson, but the plans sound at the same time intriguing and worrisome.
I do have to say that I'm rather skeptical of doing two films. If reports are correct, then there will be one film that covers the entire plot of The Hobbit released in 2010, and then there will be a second film that will take place sometime during the 60 years between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the…
oracknows | January 12, 2008I don't really care if this is cynical viral marketing or not. I don't even care that half the science blogosphere has picked it up (with no doubt the other half to pile on in the next few days). This is just so frikkin' brilliant that I'm going to join in, lemming-like, too, heedless of whether I'm being manipulated by Bio-Rad or not:
A higher quality video can be found here.
"PCR, When you need to know who the daddy is."
Best. Lyric. Ever.
oracknows | January 12, 2008Someone sent me a transcript of part of the appearance of Deirdre Imus on her husband's radio show that's been making the rounds in various discussion groups. I'm glad I don't listen to the show, as this segment might have made me take a baseball bat to my radio, if I had enough neurological function to do so after being exposed to the toxic, intelligence-sucking effects of her black hole of ignorance. If you think her two Huffington Post articles that I deconstructed a while back were bad, just listen to her on Imus. Truly, it is hard to do so without losing some brain cells, but give it a…
oracknows | January 11, 2008Well, 2008 is off to a great start with the Skeptics' Circle. It's fast approaching the time to see if the momentum can be maintained.
Yes, it won't be long before the next Skeptics' Circle comes around the pike. Indeed, the next meeting of the Skeptics' Circle will appear on Thursday, January 17 and will be hosted by the Skeptical Surfer. As always, the guidelines for submissions to the Circle are here. Help him maintain the momentum and produce the second great Skeptics' Circle of the new year.
If you're interested in hosting a Circle yourself, check out the schedule and the guidelines for…
oracknows | January 11, 2008
If there's one thing I've learned about woo in the more than a year and a half that I've been doing this regular Friday feature, it's that there's definitely a religious element to virtually all woo. In essence, it requires believing in something that cannot be demonstrated scientifically, often despite science outright refuting it. For example, there have been several "victims" (I mean subjects) for this Friday feature that have been explicitly fundamentalist Christian in nature1, 2, 3, 4, even a parody of such beliefs. Of course, if you're a New Age-type woo, you wouldn't call it "…
oracknows | January 10, 2008The other day, I mentioned what Prometheus termed the "arrogance of ignorance," in which people with no training in a complex, scientific issue have the hubris to think that they know enough to be able to lecture medical scientists on shortcomings of their research. Here's another example of just such arrogance by antivaccinationist Barbara Loe Fisher:
As usual, it is not the M.D. or Ph.D. "experts" but parents of vaccine injured children, who understand the bigger picture involving accumulating clinical evidence that many children are regressing and becoming chronically ill after receiving…
oracknows | January 10, 2008In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in improving surgical outcomes. One strain of research tends to examine the "volume-outcome" relationship, which in essence asked the question if the volume of cases that a surgeon or hospital does has a relationship outcome. In other words, are mortality rates lower, survival rates better, or the correction of symptoms more reliable for a given surgical procedure in the hands of surgeons who do more of them per year or hospitals in which more of them per year are done? On the surface, it would seem self-evident that the answer must be yes,…
oracknows | January 9, 2008I'll admit that I've been a bit oblivious to honors and awards in the blogosphere lately, but it's come to my attention that I'm actually a finalist for Best Medical Weblog.
I also note that the competition is fierce. Fellow surgeon Sid Schwab is there for Surgeonsblog, as is one of the pioneers of medical blogging, Kevin, MD. Oddly enough, I'm also nominated for Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog.
In any case, thanks to all who nominated me, and be sure to head over and vote for your favorite, especially if it's me, and don't forget to vote in all the other categories. Polls close on Sunday…
oracknows | January 9, 2008In one on my rare forays into political blogging (albeit with an emphasis on "alternative" non-evidence-based and non-science-based medicine), I discussed Ron Paul's record of supporting quack-friendly legislation and in not accepting evolution. Because of my interest in Holocaust denial, it also interested me that Hutton Gibson, a notorious Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist, would endorse Paul for President. Whenever anyone criticizes Ron Paul for being associated with white nationalists (whom I like to refer to as "white power rangers" or, when I'm feeling really snarky, "mighty…
oracknows | January 9, 2008(NOTE ADDED 12/7/2010: Kim Tinkham has died of what was almost certainly metastatic breast cancer.)
Cancer is scary. It's very, very scary, even when it is a cancer that is treatable and potentially curable. It's such a common disease that, by the time we reach a certain age, the vast majority of us have seen at least one friend or loved one die of some form of cancer. All too often, that death is horrific, and even when it is not the wasting and weakness that is often seen before the end provokes a visceral reaction matched by few diseases. Moreover, the treatments of cancer can be toxic.…
oracknows | January 8, 2008Cectic tells us why we should be afraid:
But who will save us from this menace? Click on the picture to see!
oracknows | January 8, 2008I've pointed out before how MotheringDotCom and its associated discussion forums are supportive havens for the worst antivaccinationists, HIV/AIDS denialists, and anti-amalgam wingnuts, which is one reason why I do not recommend them for any parent as a source of health information. So, out of curiosity, before I move on to other topics tomorrow, I was curious what the reaction on the MDC discussion boards was to the study by Schechter and Grether yesterday that provided strong evidence against a link between the mercury in thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) and autism/autism spectrum…
oracknows | January 8, 2008A little more than three months ago there came to pass a very bad day for antivaccinationists.
On that day, in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine appeared a study that was powerful evidence that vaccines are not associated with adverse neuropsychiatric outcomes in children. Not surprisingly, the usual suspects in the mercury militia went on the attack immediately, not wanting to believe that yet another strong piece of evidence was attacking their hallowed belief that mercury in the thimerosal preservative previously used in vaccines is a major cause or contributer to the…