medicine
oracknows | April 1, 2010I was wrong.
I know it doesn't happen that often, but I'm forced to admit it. I was wrong. I predicted that Simon Singh would likely lose his appeal against an astonishing illiberal ruling on his libel case by Sir David Eady. Singh, as you may recall, is the British science writer who wrote a now infamous article about chiropractic, in particular, Singh labeled claims that chiropractic could treat colic, sleeping and feeding problems, ear infections, asthma, and prolonged crying as "bogus." Specifically, he wrote that the British Chiropractic Association "happily promotes bogus therapies."…
ddobbs | April 1, 2010
After I wrote in my Atlantic article about getting my serotonin transporter gene assayed (which revealed that I carry that gene's apparently more plastic short-short form), I started getting a lot of email â several a week â from readers asking how to have their SERT gene tested. This led to an interesting hunt.
It was a hard question to answer. I couldn't just tell people to do what I did, for a psychiatric researcher/MD I'd known for years, who specializes in depression and serotonin, had done mine as a sort of favor to science and journalism. That researcher also stood by, had I needed…
palmd | March 31, 2010The recent arrests of the Hutaree cult here in Michigan are part of a tradition of militant separatism in this part of the country, beginning with the militia movements in the late 20th century and climaxing (hopefully) in the terrorist acts of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. This latest incident is interesting in that it appears to share some qualities of the militia movement, the Christian Identity movement, and the Tea Party movement (although what sorts of ideologic connections there really are will take some time to figure out.)
Cults in general scare me. They scare me not just…
grrlscientist | March 31, 2010tags: education, public outreach, SciCafe, science cafe, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, NYC, streaming video
Who: Kristin Baldwin, Assistant Professor at Scripps Research's Department of Cell Biology
What: free public presentation, "The Future of Stem Cells"
When: Wednesday, 7 April at 700pm
Where: Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street (Rose Center) [directions and maps]
Cost: FREE, and there is a cash bar too! (must be 21+ with ID)
What if your cells could be engineered to grow your own replacement organs? Glimpse the…
oracknows | March 31, 2010Last month, in response to some truly despicable activities by animal rights zealots, I wrote a series of posts about how animal rights activists target even researchers' children and appear to fetishize violence. This simply continued a string of posts that I've done over the years, the longest (and, in my not-so-humble-opinion, the best) deconstructs a lot of the bad scientific arguments used by animal rights activists to claim that animal research is useless, or nearly so, as well as other arguments made by extremists. One of the key points emphasized in these responses is that, regardless…
oracknows | March 30, 2010I hate to write about that woo-meister supreme Mike Adams more than one time in a week. For one thing, his website, NaturalNews.com, is a font of pseudoscience and quackery rivaling the infamous Whale.to, which makes it powerfully seductive to go back to that well again and again for blogging material. Although taking on an Adams screed is almost always a lot of fun for me, it's also too easy. Mike's craziness is so strong that, while it almost guarantees an entertaining piece for my blog, going back to that well too often risks making me fat and lazy as a skeptic and potentially boring you.…
tqa | March 29, 2010
As of this morning, at least 20% of your genes were patented by someone other than you. The holders of the patents could quite literally forbid you to investigate large portions of your own personal genome. This afternoon, a federal judge in New York handed down a broad ruling that calls into question - thankfully - the entire idea that naturally occurring genes are patentable.
The ruling in question most directly affects the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which have been implicated in hereditary breast cancer. Myriad Genetics patented those two genes, and has been jealously guarding those patents…
oracknows | March 29, 2010If there's one thing about the anti-vaccine movement I've learned over the last five or so years, it's that it's virtually completely immune to evidence, science, and reason. No matter how much evidence is arrayed against it, it always finds a way to spin, distort, or misrepresent it to combat the evidence. Not that this is any news to readers of this blog or other skeptical blogs that make combatting anti-vaccine propaganda one of its major themes, but it bears repeating often. It also bears repeating and emphasizing examples of just the sort of disingenuous and even outright deceptive…
oracknows | March 27, 2010As far as silly Internet memes go, given my interest in World War II history, I have a weakness for Downfall parodies, which have grown up on YouTube like kudzu over the last couple of years. I also thought it was only a matter of time before someone did something like this and wondered why it hadn't been done before:
(Note: In case you don't know or remember who Poul Thorsen is, read this.)
I love it:
"Perhaps that 14 Studies website was too high brow." Heh.
"Now I'll have to pay for another stupid telephone survey." Heh heh.
"But what's the use? Orac will only make fun of me." Heh heh heh…
palmd | March 27, 2010I love Icelandic names. Just reading them makes me think of Vikings and valkyries. One name that I can't get out of my head right now is "Iris Erlingsdottir". She's an Icelandic journalist who put up a pro-vaccine piece on Huffington Post. Not only is the piece pro-vaccine, but it is quite critical of her fellow HuffPo blogger "Dr." Jenny McCarthy, the actress who, after having a child and doing a lot of googling, decided that vaccines are evil. She is so convinced of the danger of vaccine that she explicitly wishes our children to suffer from vaccine-preventable diseases to try to prove…
oracknows | March 27, 2010Perhaps you've seen them. (Actually, how could you avoid them?) I'm talking about those annoying Omnaris commercials with the crappy computer animation in which a bunch of military-looking men in helmets ram an Omnaris sprayer into the woman's nose to fix her nasal allergies:
Something's always bugged me about that commercial, more than the amateurish computer animation and the cheesy, "Omnaris, to the nose!" battle cry of the mini-white troops. Yes, I see the obvious (and lame) homage to Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). Even so,…
ddobbs | March 26, 2010
from a different Daily Dish -- 365 petri dishes, by Klari Reis
House of Wisdom, the splendid new blog on Arabic science from Mohammed Yahia, editor of Nature Middle East describes an effort to map the Red Sea's coral reefs with satellite, aerial, adn ship-based technologies. Nice project and a promising new blog.
Brain and Mind
Ritalin works by boosting dopamine levels, says a story in Technology Review, reporting on a paper in Nature Neuroscience. The effect is to enhance not just attention but the speed of learning.
As several tweeters and bloggers have noted, H-Madness is a new group blog…
oracknows | March 26, 2010I have an MD and a PhD. While many people find that to be impressive, personally I've become so inured of it that I certainly don't take note of it much anymore. Certainly, I rarely point it out. So, you may ask, why am I pointing it out this time, even going so far as to start a post with it? The answer is simple. If there was one thing I always thought about having both an MD and a PhD, it's that it should render one more resistant to pseudoscience and woo. I know, I know, maybe I'm being incredibly arrogant or incredibly naive--possibly both--but it was what I thought for a long time, even…
terrasig | March 25, 2010Have you ever taken one of the now-over-the-counter heartburn relief remedies like Tagamet, Zantac, or Pepcid?
How about the beta-blocker atenolol (Tenormin) or metoprolol (Lopressor) for antihypertensive therapy, or the original less-selective beta-blocker propranolol (Inderal) for migraines, presentation anxiety or stage fright?
If you answered yes to either question, you owe a debt of gratitude to Sir James Black, the Scottish physician who left us earlier this week at age 85. The best obituary I have seen memorializing Sir James comes from the UK Telegraph.
Black was called the father…
oracknows | March 25, 2010I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm not really a political blogger. True, I do from time to time succumb to the blogger's temptation of being a pundit on current events or pontificating on politics, but in general I don't do that very often because political bloggers are a dime a dozen and politics isn't my area of strength. Writing about science and science-based medicine is. That's part of the reason why I really haven't said much about the massive health care reform bill that was passed on Sunday or the political process, except when on occasion the utter insanity of it all (…
palmd | March 24, 2010It has been alleged by Great Minds such as Jenny McCarthy (D.Goog.) that the US recommends far more vaccinations than other countries. Her precise statement was, "How come many other countries give their kids one-third as many shots as we do?" She put this into the context of wondering if our current vaccine schedule should be less rigid. The entire piece was filled with what could charitably called less-than-truthful assertions, but I'm not feeling that charitable: they are lies (or the rantings of an idiot, or the delusions of lunatic. There are probably other possibilities that I haven'…
oracknows | March 24, 2010It has often been written on this blog and elsewhere that the mark of a true crank is hatred of the scientific consensus, be it consensus regarding the theory of evolution, the science that says homeopathy is impossible, anthropogenic global warming; various areas of science-based medicine; or the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Perhaps the most famous expression of distrust of a scientific consensus is the famous speech by Michael Crichton, in which he famously said:
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science…
oracknows | March 23, 2010Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging. This is one of those times. So enjoy this bit of Classic Insolence from back in April 2007 and be assured that I'll be back tomorrow. Remember, if you've been reading less than three years, it's new to you, and, even if you have been reading more than three years, it's fun to see how posts like this have aged.
From fellow ScienceBlogger Abel, I'm made aware of an excellent post on the Health Care Renewal Blog about the financial reality of being an academic physician in a modern U.S. medical school. It's an excellent overview of how medical…
oracknows | March 22, 2010Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging, preventing the creation of fresh Insolence, at least Insolence of the quality that you've come to expect. This is one of those times. So enjoy this bit of Classic Insolence from back in November 2007 and be assured that I'll be back tomorrow. Remember, if you've been reading less than two and a half years, it's new to you, and, even if you have been reading more than two and a half years, it's fun to see how posts like this have aged.
I wish I had thought of this one, but I didn't. However, I never let a little thing like not having thought of…
palmd | March 22, 2010It's hard to imagine the that the hyperbolic rhetoric that characterized the health care reform debate could get any worse (death panels, etc.). But it will. Representative John Boehner (Asshat-OH) started it of last night with what amounted to a call for the overthrow of our democracy.
"Today we stand here amidst the wreckage of what was once the respect and honor that this House was held in by our fellow citizens.
"And we all know why it is so.
"We have failed to listen to America.
"And we have failed to reflect the will of our constituents.
"And when we fail to reflect that will - we fail…