cancer
oracknows | March 9, 2009
PZ's muscling in on my territory. Apparently, ruling the Darwinian, creationist-destroying atheist cephalopod blogging world isn't enough, and he has to start moving in on medicine. No problem, given that this time around he brought some rather interesting woo to my attention, suggesting it as perhaps a suitable topic for Your Friday Dose of Woo called God's Answer to Cancer. Besides, it's PZ's birthday; so as a birthday present, instead of reposting the same silly picture that I have for the last two years, I'll simply link to him now and add, oh, perhaps 1% to his traffic total for today…
oracknows | March 6, 2009I have two brief observations to make before I launch into my latest bit of insolence. First off, it figures that, whenever I go away to a meeting, there's simply an embarrassment of blogging riches. People have been sending me stuff to which, even if I were at home and having a slow week, I could probably never get. Good stuff. Interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I'm now forced either to try to blog about them when I finally get home, which might as well be months later in blog-time, or let them go by uncommented upon, which hurts Orac's mighty ego. Oh, well. My next observation is that I feel…
dgmacarthur | March 5, 2009Jones et al. (2009). Exomic Sequencing Identifies PALB2 as a Pancreatic Cancer Susceptibility Gene. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1171202
A paper published online today in Science illustrates both the potential and the challenges of using large-scale DNA sequencing to identify rare genetic variants underlying disease risk.
Traditionally, geneticists have pinned down such variants using large family studies. By using these families to track which parts of the genome tend to be co-inherited with the disease, it's possible to zoom in on the region of DNA that harbours the disease-causing mutation…
oracknows | March 5, 2009I realize I've said it before, but I still can't believe as many people read what I like to lay down on a daily basis right here on this blog. Believe me, it has nothing to do with an sort of false sense of modesty. After four years at this, I know I'm good at blogging. Real good. But good isn't always enough to make much of a difference or even to garner an audience. Whether I've done the first, I don't know. I like to think that I have. As for the second, I've done pretty well for myself. Indeed, after a year of stagnant traffic, January and February were the best months, traffic-wise, in…
terrasig | March 4, 2009I just wanted to send out congratulations to my friends and colleagues in Charleston at the Medical College of South Carolina (MUSC) on the 2 March announcement of their receipt of NCI Cancer Center designation:
The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center has attained National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation, a distinction held by only 63 other cancer centers in the U.S. The Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) is the only institution in South Carolina with this prestigious status.
Andrew S. Kraft, MD, Director of the Hollings Cancer Center (HCC), said being named one of…
oracknows | March 4, 2009If there's' one theme, one cause, that this blog has emphasized throughout the four years of its existence and the three years of its having resided on ScienceBlogs, it's been to champion science- and evidence-based medicine over pseudoscience and quackery. Whether it's refuting the lies of antivaccine zealots, having a little fun with some of the more outrageously bizarre forms of pseudoscience, railing against cancer quackery, lamenting how easily pseudoscientific quackery has infiltrated medical academia, complaining about drug companies rigging clinical studies, or trying to educate my…
oracknows | February 25, 2009Over the last few days, it seems to me, I've been blogging so much about antivaccine lunacy that I was beginning to wonder whether I should rename the blog "Respectfully Insolent Antivaccine Slapdowns." As good as it's been to dwell on seeing the antivaccine movement suffer two major setbacks in 2009 even before we've reached the end of February, it's time to move on for a while; that is, unless the antivaccine movement does or writes something stupid enough to tempt my attention back. In the meantime, as I get back into the swing of blogging again, I haven't yet gone through my pile of…
purepedantry | February 20, 2009As scientists await Obama reauthorizing federal funding of embryonic stem cell research and the FDA approves the first clinical trials using embryonic stem cell treatments, there is an important case report that highlights the potential safety issues with putting stem cells in humans.
Amariglio et al. report a case in PLoS Medicine of a boy treated by spinal injections of fetal-derived stem cells for a developmental disorder called ataxia telangiectasia. Four years after treatment, the boy developed brain tumors.
From the abstract:
A boy with ataxia telangiectasia (AT) was treated with…
oracknows | February 20, 2009I knew it. I just knew it.
I just knew that when I finally decided to come back from my absence from this blog that something very unpleasant and sad would be waiting for me. True, there had actually been one very nasty thing that I simply had to deal with a few days ago, but that was a particularly vile and despicable human being who, believe it or not, was not John Best. That is not the case here, although the misinformation being pushed is truly disturbing.
Not surprisingly, what awaited me upon my decision to come back was posted earlier this week on that repository of antivaccine…
oracknows | February 18, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
oracknows | February 17, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
oracknows | February 16, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
oracknows | February 16, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
dgmacarthur | February 15, 2009Steve Murphy is up in arms about a recent email from 23andMe to its customers advertising the use of genetic variants on its V2 chip to predict individual risk of statin-induced myopathy and breast cancer.
Of course, Steve does have a strong financial interest in 23andMe staying as far away as possible from the area of clinical diagnostics, but I share his unease here.
So far personal genomics companies have by and large done their best to steer clear of being seen as "doing medicine", but this move would seem to put 23andMe explicitly over that line. In the case of the breast cancer…
oracknows | February 11, 2009I have to say, this is getting monotonous.
Let me back up a minute. One of the most common beliefs among users and advocates of "complementary and alternative" medicine (CAM) is that supplementation with vitamins will have all sorts of beneficial health effects. True, this belief is also pervasive among people who wouldn't go to an acupuncturist if you held a gun to their head, but it has become most associated with CAM. That this is so can actually be viewed as evidence of just how successful CAM activists have been in completely yoking all manner of lifestyle interventions to prevent or…
oracknows | February 7, 2009Sometimes, woo makes the news.
Does anyone remember "Professor" Bill Nelson, the cross-dressing "inventor" who created a most amazing woo machine? I've written about it three times before:
Your Friday Dose of Woo: Miraculous quest for the quantum
Your Friday Dose of Woo: Serious woo from Down Under
The SCIO, Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface, and Bill Nelson: Better late than never--or maybe not
This guy sells his device for $20,000 a pop and claims he sells 40 machines a month.
Now, check out this Marketplace episode, Miracle Makers or Money Takers? Watch the whole thing.
It never…
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 16, 2009I hate to finish up the week on a bit of a downer, but unfortunately this week I really wasn't in the mood to do justice to Your Friday Dose of Woo, even though I have at least a couple of potential targets--I mean subjects--to cover for my (hopefully) fun little Friday exercise. I was gearing up to try anyway, when I saw something in my e-mail that saddened me greatly. (More on that in a moment.) I even thought of trying to pull off a post on a peer-reviewed article, even though it was pretty late when I got home. However, due to the careful reading and examination of data required, those…
oracknows | January 15, 2009My dear readers, I beg your indulgence for the moment.
I had been planning on doing something a bit more serious than what I've been up to lately. Believe it or not, NaturalNews.com pointed me to a study that's actually pretty interesting. It even challenges to some extend existing results. Of course, Mike Adams' minion's interpretation of the study was so wrong as to be not even wrong, as they say (so what else is new?). But therein lies the entertainment value with the educational value.
Sometimes, however, something happens, and a followup to something I've written before is demanded. It…
palmd | January 14, 2009Hope, of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure.
---Abraham Cowley, The Mistress. For Hope. c. 1647
I was visiting my friend in the hospital the other day. She had a port put in under the skin of her chest for chemotherapy. The whole story is unfair. She's a terrific person, with a great husband and an adorable son. She's also doing remarkably well. But that's not today's story.
Another friend wondered if maybe she should recommend a macrobiotic diet or something, anything, to help stop this stupid disease. Now, you…