oracknows | September 20, 2007Mike the Mad Biologist posts a link to and excerpt from an article that he seems to think will make "M.D.'s heads explode."
It didn't. At least, not in the case of this M.D.
Basically, it's about physician reimbursement, a topic guaranteed provoke controversy, divided between those who think doctors are already overpaid (most non-physicians) and those who do not (most doctors). The article is by Shannon Brownlee and makes a proposal that is breathtakingly naive and poorly thought out:
...we don't end up saving any money by tightening reimbursements. But we do end up pissing off doctors, who…
oracknows | September 19, 2007Thanks to fellow ScienceBlogger Abel Pharmboy, it would appear that I was mentioned in an article in The Scientist about science blogs in general (not ScienceBlogs in particular). I'm gratified at how many mentions of my humble blog I see in the comments, and far be it from me to toot my own horn...
Oh, whom am I kidding? Head on over to register your favorites--even more so if Respectful Insolence is one of them.
oracknows | September 19, 2007Last week, upon arriving back at my office after a day in clinic, I noticed an odd box sitting in my "in" box. I didn't recall having ordered anything recently, and my first thought was that an order for the laboratory had somehow been delivered to my office instead of my lab by mistake. It's uncommon, but it occasionally happens. Curiosity piqued, I picked up the box. It was small, only a few inches high, and lighter than I had expected. I couldn't hear any swishing that might indicated a powdered reagent in a bottle in the box. Moreover, upon closer inspection, I noticed that the box had no…
oracknows | September 18, 2007I'm rather amused.
No, I'm very amused.
Yesterday, as you may recall, I discussed a seemingly alarming e-mail that's going around about a 17-year-old boy with melanoma whom the State of California had allegedly removed from the custody of his mother because she and he had wanted to use "advanced natural medicine" to treat his melanoma, rather than surgery and chemotherapy. I pointed out a number of questionable elements in the story that made me very suspicious of its accuracy, not the least of which is the fact that the mainstay of melanoma treatment is surgery plus biological therapy, not…
oracknows | September 18, 2007As the resident World War II maven on ScienceBlogs, I noted with interested PZ's mention of a story from Germany about a German Cardinal's jaw-droppingly bad choice of words:
A German cardinal has triggered a storm of criticism in Germany by describing atheist art as "degenerate" -- a term usually avoided in public discourse because of its association with the Nazis.
Cardinal Joachim Meisner was speaking at the blessing of his archdiocese's new art museum, the Kolumba, in the heart of Cologne, on Friday.
"Wherever culture is separated from the worship of God, the cult atrophies in ritualism…
oracknows | September 18, 2007My recent update of my ongoing discussion of the Abraham Cherrix case reminded me that there's a bit of alarming e-mail being sent out and forwarded far and wide. If you read it, at first glance, you will think it sounds utterly horrifying, the Abraham Cherrix and Katie Wernecke cases all rolled up into one and then placed on steroids to the point that even a maven of evidence-based medicine would have to take pause--if the story were true.
The source of the e-mail seems to be the Natural Solutions Foundation/Health Freedom USA, given all the "donate" buttons in the webpage to which I tracked…
oracknows | September 17, 2007While I'm flogging blog carnivals, here's another one that's right up my alley that seemingly came into existence without my having been aware of it: the Cancer Research Blog Carnival.
The first edition of the carnival at Bayblab has a lot of good stuff. The next edition will be at nosugrefneb.com on October 5. I might have to submit a piece.
oracknows | September 17, 2007
It would appear that there's finally some good news in the strange and sad case of Starchild Abraham Cherrix. The AP reports that he and his doctor are reporting that his lymphoma is in remission again:
FLOYD, Va. -- A 17-year-old who won a court battle against state officials who tried to force him to undergo chemotherapy for his lymphatic cancer is in remission following radiation treatments over the past year, the teen and his doctor said.
Starchild Abraham Cherrix's case spurred debate on whether the government should get involved in family medical decisions. It also led to a state law…
oracknows | September 16, 2007I've been very remiss about this, but the e-mail notifying me of it happened to arrive a couple of weeks ago, back when I was out of town because of the recent death in the family. While cleaning out my e-mail boxes, I came across the notice again and decided it was time to rectify my oversight, do my surgeonly blogging duty, and plug these carnivals.
It looks as though there's a new blog carnival in town, and it's all about surgery: Surgexperiences. The latest edition is at Other Things Amanzi. Check it out.
The next edition will be at Suture for a Living on September 30.
oracknows | September 16, 2007Even though I only rarely blog about politics, I'm with Ed Brayton, P. Z. Myers, and Amygdala on this one. Truly a wonderful thing has happened to the Presidential race.
Alan Keyes has entered the race for the 2008 Republican nomination for President.
No one can bring the crazy and stupid to a Presidential race the way Alan Keyes can. (My only hope for even better would be if Ted Nugent were to throw his hat into the ring.) His combination of self-righteous pandering to the religious right, nutty Libertarian views, and just plain silly statements far exceed anything any of the other…
oracknows | September 16, 2007There's a long and strange history of truly bizarre experiments done in the name of science. Alex Boese has gathered twenty of the strangest examples here. There are the usual suspects, such as the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram obedience experiment, but there were others that I hadn't heard of. To me, the award for the most bizarre has to be a tie between the vomit drinking doctor and this one:
Ever since the carnage of the French Revolution, when the guillotine sent thousands of severed heads tumbling into baskets, scientists had wondered whether it would be possible to keep a…
oracknows | September 15, 2007Now here's a church service that I could get into, the Church of the Time Lord. As an article in Metro.co.uk says:
A congregation are to be invited to compare a Time Lord with the Lord of Time at a special Dr Who-themed church service, it was disclosed today.
Teenagers and young people in their early 20s are being targeted for the "cafe-style" Communion service, with music and video clips from the hit series, at St Paul's Church in Grangetown, Cardiff.
The Anglican church was used as a location two years ago for an episode of the series starring Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor.
Fr…
oracknows | September 14, 2007Regarding Dan Olmsted's latest foray into autism pseudoscience at Rescue Post, Kev asks, "Why aren't you scared to death?"
Olmsted's latest happened to appear while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago, and there's so much other interesting stuff out there to blog about since I got back that I never got around to addressing yet another of his attempts to blame autism on mercury. This time, though, just like J.B. Handley and others who have been steadily backing away from the "mercury in vaccines causes autism" hypothesis (mainly because each new epidemiological study that comes out fails…
oracknows | September 14, 2007As some of my commenters may have noticed, the ScienceBlogs server has been acting a bit strangely, often being really slow to post comments and sometimes even producing error messages. This has led to some double and even triple posts of comments, as readers understandably try to repost something after getting an error or when it appears that the server's hung up.
Try to resist the temptation. At the very least, before trying to repost, reload the page with the relevant post and make sure that your comment didn't already show up. That will help cut down on the number of double comments, not…
oracknows | September 14, 2007
Earlier this week, I deconstructed a truly inane article on Mike Adams NewsTarget website espousing dangerous cancer quackery, with claims that herbal concoctions alone could "naturally heal" cancer. Such a claim wouldn't have attracted bringing the hammer of Respectful Insolence⢠down if there had been some actual evidence presented that this healer could do what she claimed she could do. Unfortunately, as is the case with virtually all such claims, there was none, just a complicated regimen involving four or five different herbal brews involving a total of around 40 different plants and…
oracknows | September 13, 2007Howdy, thar, pardners! The Skeptics' Circle Saloon is open for business, and, after bein' away for more than two ears, Brent's done gone and set up a hum-dinger of a meeting:
We rode up to the front of the Skeptic's Circle Saloon and dismounted. Where once there were only two hitching posts, seven stood in their place. "Old Doc Orac must be doing something right," I said with a smile.
I had heard that Doc had taken over running the Saloon from St. Nate a while back. I also heard that he had moved out of his office in town and had put up his surgery right in the Saloon. I adjusted the weight…
oracknows | September 13, 2007Today, on my way into work, I did something momentous, something that marks a turning point in my life. It was a small act, but one that has lifted a huge weight from me.
I put a check in the mail to pay off the last of my student loans. Free at last! And it's only been 19 years since I graduated from medical school, too!
Thinking about it, my overall debt when I finished medical school was relatively small, around $55,000 or so. True, it did balloon up to around $80,000 during the years when I could not afford to make payments due to the low pay of residency and the small stipend when I was…
oracknows | September 12, 2007I'm not normally a big fan of these reality TV courtroom shows, and I've never watched Judge Hatchett before. That being said, I was surprised how well done this segment was in which a 14-year-old who's fascinated by Adolf Hitler (even going so far as to write "I love Hitler" in large letters on a sheet of paper) and had come to admire hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan was educated about just who and what it was that he was idolizing.
Although I'm skeptical that a single visit to the Museum of Tolerance and meeting with Elizabeth Mann, a Holocaust survivor, can turn this kid around, I'm…
oracknows | September 12, 2007I'm away from regular blogging for a couple of weeks, and what do I find when I finally get back into the swing of things?
Dangerous cancer quackery published on Mike Adams' Newstarget site, that's what.
I know, I know. I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not. It's all par for the course for Newstarget, where evidence-based medicine is viewed as nothing but a conspiracy of big pharma, evil scientific doctors, and the FDA to poison patients against their will. Truly, Mike Adams has decided to go head-to-head with Whale.to and Dr. Mercola for the title of most ridiculous website ostensibly about…
oracknows | September 11, 2007This video was shot by Bob and Bri, who in 2001 lived in a high rise a mere 500 yards from the North Tower. There is nothing to add, at least not by me. It is difficult to watch.