oracknows | April 11, 2007The latest Grand Rounds, that blog carnival for medicine and health care issues, has been posted at the ironically named (I hope) Dr. Dork. Check it out.
oracknows | April 11, 2007It's been a couple of weeks since we last checked in with The DCA Site, that dubious advertising site for BuyDCA.com, where a chemist named Jim Tassano sells to desperate cancer patients non-pharmaceutical grade and non-FDA-approved dichloroacetate, the small molecule chemotherapeutic agent with an interesting and unusual mechanism of action that has shown promise in rat models of cancer but as yet has not undergone clinical trials in humans to determine if it is effective in cancer. Based on a lot of hype by the credulous and proudly ignorant, a lot of distrust of big pharma (some justified…
oracknows | April 10, 2007You never touch me anymore. Is it because you think I'm fat? Damon diadema
Scientists have recently witnessed two species of arachnids that caress family members and seem to enjoy snuggling. Two kinds of whip spiders--dime-sized Phrynus marginemaculatus found in Florida and the larger Damon diadema which live in Tanzania and Kenya--spend their days in constant tactile touch with their relatives. In one experiment, siblings were put in a cage among many other unrelated whip spiders and within minutes had gathered back together in their family group. Mothers were routinely witnessed stroking…
oracknows | April 10, 2007Today, in case you didn't remember, is World Homeopathy Day, a day for the credulous to celebrate the woo that is homeopathy by celebrating the birthday of the originator of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann. I had thought of making a "homeopathic" mention of this great event (in other words, no mention, just like there's no active ingredient in a homeopathically diluted and succussated remedy), but then I remembered that, according to the principles of homeopathy, the more you dilute something, the stronger it is. Thus, by homeopathic "reasoning," not mentioning World Homeopathy Day would be even…
oracknows | April 10, 2007I don't want to make this blog "all Egnor all the time." I know it's hard to believe, given my posting behavior recently, but really I don't. No matter how much the Discovery Institute's creationist neurosurgeon may embarrass the hell out of me as (I shudder to have to admit) a fellow surgeon, I've recently been trying to ration the rebuttals of his nonsense about evolution, and I note that I took one swipe at him yesterday. Even so, I hope you'll forgive me for this brief lapse. I had to do it because my irony meter is building up to a meltdown and explosion because of what Dr. Michael Egnor…
oracknows | April 10, 2007It figures. On the very day that I posted a rather long post about a series of three papers discussing the use of mammography and MRI for screening women for breast cancer, there would have to be another paper relevant to the topic of the early detection of cancer, again in this case breast cancer. This one didn't get as much play in the media, but it fits in very well with the primary messages of Part 1 and Part 2 of this series: that earlier detection is not necessarily better. This study, however, has a bit of a twist.
Now, despite the general tone of my commentary implying that newer,…
oracknows | April 9, 2007I tell ya, ever since I first posted my infamous You Might Be an Altie If..., it seems that everyone wants in on the action. Not that I mind much. I can't honestly take credit for the idea; so it would be silly of me to get upset if someone else uses it.
This time around, it's fellow skeptic Skeptico. As I do, he really detests the ridiculous woo that is The Secret. I don't necessarily like the term that he has come up with for aficionados of The Secret and the truly idiotic and woo-filled Law of Attraction (Secretards). After all, the term "altie," although meant a bit sarcastically, is not…
oracknows | April 9, 2007Via Modern Mechanix, from the pages of Popular Mechanics, April 1924:
BEARD IS REMOVED WITH MUD AND USE OF X-RAYS
Shaving beards from men's faces, has been accomplished by a special mudlike paste that is undergoing experiments at the hands of a New York doctor. After the mass has been applied, it hardens and is torn off. To finish the operation, X-rays are then directed against the skin. The originator of the method claims that it is beneficial and if used regularly will remove scars and similar marks of long standing. It is also said that the sticky treatment does not leave any ill effects…
oracknows | April 9, 2007In my last couple of posts on the risks and benefits of ever more sensitive screening tests for various cancers, and in particular breast cancer, I marveled at a a bit of serendipity that had pointed me to a particular old article a mere few days before multiple new papers about breast cancer screening with mammography and MRI were released. It turns out that that's not the only serendipity that's been going on lately, as far as blogging goes. For example, there's been Dr. Michael Egnor, the creationist professor of neurosurgery who's become the Discovery Institute's seemingly favorite "…
oracknows | April 8, 2007Pediatric Grand Rounds is now up over at the abode of one of my favorite medbloggers, Flea. This time around, Flea has chosen a rather--shall we say?--unusual theme around which to organize the festivities.
oracknows | April 8, 2007After all the chatter that's been going on throughout ScienceBlogs about Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney's editorial, Framing Science, published in Science on Friday, I almost thought that there was nothing really left for me to say. Of course, regular readers of this blog know that there's rarely an issue that's been so thoroughly picked over by my fellow science bloggers (ScienceBloggers and otherwise) that I can't find something else to say about it. And I'll do it by, in effect, "framing" the issue in perhaps a slightly different way than Mooney and Nisbet did. But first, let's examine a bit…
oracknows | April 7, 2007Via Terra Sigilatta (who beat me to this one, as I saw the press release yesterday but never got around to blogging about it), we find yet another case of heavy metal contamination of a popular supplement, this time herbal kelp supplements. This discovery was prompted by the investigation of a case of woman who suffered real harm from these supplements:
The new study, published in this month's issue of Environmental Health Perspectives - available online at www.ehponline.org - was prompted by the case of a 54-year-old woman who was seen at the UCD Occupational Medicine Clinic following a two-…
oracknows | April 7, 2007I don't recall how I came across this. Perhaps it was while looking for photos of our intrepid mascot that I don't already have, or perhaps it was to see if anyone else has anything to say about our cheery but strange mascot, the purpose of whose head you really don't want to think too much about. (On the other hand, I would compare EneMan to Casey Luskin, given how firmly Luskin likes to put his head up the behinds of various luminaries of the "intelligent design" movement, but that would be a profound insult to EneMan, who at least serves a highly useful purpose in preparing the rectum and…
oracknows | April 6, 2007Time flies once again, and, seemingly so soon after the last successful Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, the next one is fast approaching. This time around, it's going to be hosted at Geek Counterpoint. So get your entries to Lorne by Wednesday, and then join us for yet another entertaining edition of every skeptic's favorite blog carnival. At least I hope it's every skeptic's favorite blog carnival; if it's not, believe me, we're working on it.
As is my wont, I'm also pointing out that we're always looking for hosts. If you've hosted before and think you might want ot host again or if you'…
oracknows | April 6, 2007This one didn't seem big enough to deserve the full Your Friday Dose of Woo treatment, but I certainly don't want to let this additional bit of religious woo go by unnoticed:
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - March 27, 2007. Regardless of creed, ethnicity, age or culture, throughout history people have steadfastly believed in the power of prayer. Now a team of scientists and over a million people around the world will put this belief to the test. From May 15th through May 29th the "Breakthrough Celebration: Compassion to Action" will be the largest interfaith global meditation and prayer for peace…
oracknows | April 6, 2007In perusing my Folder of Woo, which is becoming every more crammed with potential targets begging for the tender mercies of Orac in their very own Your Friday Dose of Woo installments, I was wondering which one to pick. After all, it's an embarrassment of riches (if you can call it "riches") in there, with so much woo and so little time. I needed something different after last week's installment, which, sadly, appeared to have grossed some people out. I don't know why it might have grossed more people out than previous posts on colon cleanses and liver flushes, but for some reason it did. But…
oracknows | April 5, 2007An "integrative" medical practitioner observes:
I just came from a lecture by a Chinese Prof. who has a cancer hospital in China (Fuda Cancer hospital). What is strange, was it didn't use therapies from China, but rather technologies from the USA. They have cryoablation, photodynamic therapies, dendritic cell therapies, immunotherapy as well as chemoablation.
They claimed to have a very good success rate in increasing survival. Patients from all over have come to this hospital in Guangzhuo.
Why is he surprised?
As I've pointed out before, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is losing out to…
oracknows | April 5, 2007[Note: If you haven't already, you should read PART 1 of this two-part series. It defines several terms that I will be using in this post, and I don't plan on explaining them again, given that they were explained in detail in Part 1. Of course, if you're a medical professional and already know what lead time bias, length bias, and stage migration are, then you should still read Part 1 for its scintillating writing.]
I hadn't expected that it would take me this long to get around to part 2 of my post from Monday, but, alas, other matters intervened. Better late than never, and besides, we…
oracknows | April 4, 2007The latest Change of Shift, the blog carnival for nursing, has been posted at Emergiblog. Enjoy!
oracknows | April 4, 2007Apparently after a long night of drinking, Egyptian fruit bats wake up craving particular types of sugar. In a recent study, Francisco Sanchez from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) showed that the bats prefer foods high in the sugar molecule, fructose, after eating slightly fermented figs and dates. Fructose is known to reduce the toxicity of ethanol. After eating the alcoholic fruit, the bats even show visible signs of inebriation, such as bumping into objects and having a higher susceptibility to predators. As of yet, Sanchez has not witnessed a group of bats singing "Tiny…