medicine
oracknows | December 30, 2008Longtime readers of this blog may remember the case of Eliza Jane Scovill. For newbies and those who might not remember, I've copiously linked to posts written by me and others.
To boil it all down, three years ago a child named Eliza Jane Scovill (often called EJ) died tragically three years ago of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and HIV-associated encephalopathy. The reason is that her mother, Christine Maggiore, was a prominent HIV/AIDS denialist, who, after having been found to be HIV positive back in the early 1990s fell under the sway of Peter Duesberg and came to believe that HIV does…
oracknows | December 30, 2008Here's one for our favorite creationist neurosurgeon: A whole Grand Rounds all about the interface of and application to medicine of the theory of evolution.
oracknows | December 29, 2008Last week, I gave everybody's favorite creationist neurosurgeon, Dr. Michael Egnor, the gift everyone loves to read but not to receive: the gift of not-so-Respectful Insolence. Christmas or no Christmas, he did ask for it, and far be it from me, given my benevolent nature, not to respond to his plaintiff plea with a resounding "Affirmative!" Nor was I alone. Others joined in. But apparently not everyone thought Dr. Egnor deserving of such a group slapdown. Apparently there is at least one blogger out there who thought that Dr. Egnor needed a defender. Apparently there is at least one blogger…
oracknows | December 29, 2008I've been meaning to write about this topic for quite a while but never really found a reason to. Indeed, this one's been floating around in the back of my mind for a long time. Perhaps one reason is that it's hard for a surgeon to write about this topic without coming off sounding like an old fart, a curmudgeon, unhappy about change and thinking that a system that was good enough for me must sure as hell be good enough for the current generation of residents. In fact, even after seeing an article that normally would have spurred me to write about this topic more than two weeks ago, I stored…
oracknows | December 26, 2008...more not-so-Respectful Insolence, courtesy not of Orac this time but of other skeptical physician-bloggers!
Enjoy:
Smackdown, please (yes, Egnor, I'm talking to you) (by blog bud PalMD)
Defending science-based medicine (by skeptical neurologist Dr. Steve Novella, who's been known to spar a bit with Dr. Egnor himself over evolution and neuroscience)
Egnorance is Bliss (by Dr. Kimball Atwood IV)
oracknows | December 26, 2008Welcome back. I hope you and yours who celebrate Christmas have had a happy one. Ours was kind of mixed and bittersweet for reasons that I don't particularly feel like going into now, although sooner or later I will probably have to say something about it. In the meantime, as much as I hate to be a downer right after the holidays, when many of my readers have the day off and are looking forward to hanging out with family or friends or maybe attacking the Boxing Day sales in the U.K. or just the sales in the U.S. and elsewhere. However, just before the holidays and shortly before I gave a…
sb admin | December 24, 2008Arrogance. It's always about arrogance. Arrogance is the Great Distractor in science. It is a half-a-dozen logical/rhetorical fallacies rolled into one---argumentum ad ignorantium, non sequitur, tu quoque, ad hominem, straw man (yes, that's not six yet, but I gotta give myself some flexibility here). These fallacies aren't just rhetorical toys to play with in the blogosphere. They can be simple mistakes made when discussing an controversy, or they can be weapons used in place of a valid argument. They are particularly important when dealing with reality.
Reality. I'm not talking…
oracknows | December 24, 2008It's Christmas Eve.
I know, I know, it's all supposed to be Peace On Earth, Good Will Towards Men (and Women), and all that jazz. Really, that's exactly what I had intended for today and tomorrow. Indeed, my plan was to do nothing more than a quickie post today and a maybe a couple of brief (and hopefully amusing) Christmas-related posts this afternoon and tomorrow. Really, I had.
Then it came, and it came from a direction that I least expected. Yes, yet another "old friend" of the blog had to go and and not just ask but beg for a heapin' helpin' of not-so-Respectful Insolence. My readers…
oracknows | December 23, 2008Of all the forms of quackery out there, the "energy healing" methods and "faith healing" methods have to be the most ridiculous. After all, the claims of "healers" using such modalities, when boiled down to their very essence, are nothing less (and nothing more) than claiming the ability to do magic. Indeed, "energy healing" involves the claim of being able to manipulate "life energies" undetectable by science for therapeutic intent using either ritualistic hand motions or the inscribing of symbols in the air (reiki), concentration and the laying on of hands (therapeutic touch, reiki, and…
j7uy5 | December 23, 2008GlaxoSmithKline, also known -- to old-timers -- as
GlaxoWellcomeSmithKlineBeecham, has elected to halt all political
contributions. Almost. The corporation itself will not make
any contributions, after having made a total of $585,425 to candidates
in the USA in 2008. It will facilitate PAC activity by its employees.
GlaxoSmithKline to halt political contributions
LONDON (AP) -- The London-based international drug firm GlaxoSmithKline
announced Monday a global ban on corporate political contributions.
The primary impact will be in the United States and Canada, where the
company has been…
oracknows | December 23, 2008I'm happy to say, I've never watched an episode of The Doctors, at least if the episode segment I've just been sent is any indication of the quality of the science and medicine discussed on the TV show. The episode, which aired on December 11, featured a segment on autism featuring an old "friend" of the blog. The fact that he was featured on a television show ostensibly designed to discuss medicine and make it accessible to a general audience tells me that not only the producers but the physicians who do the show are utterly without a clue. No, it wasn't J.B. Handley or Jenny McCarthy, but…
oracknows | December 22, 2008The zombie has arisen once again to eat the brains of the Air Force.
I'm referring to so-called "battlefield acupuncture," a topic that I wrote about last week for this very blog. I didn't think there'd be a reason to revisit the subject again so soon, but I was wrong for three reasons. First, I remain appalled at how one ideologue, Col. (Dr.) Richard Niemtzow, a radiation oncologist and Air Force physician turned woo-meister-in-chief and number one advocate of acupuncture use in the military, has succeeded in introducing acupuncture into not only formerly hard-nosed and science-based…
oracknows | December 22, 2008Why does anyone listen to actors when they pontificate about health and medical issues?
Think about it. What is it that actors do? They read lines given to them. True, some have a talent that goes beyond that; they can actually write or direct. But few of them have any more abilities when it comes to science than the average populace. Indeed, arguably, they have less knowledge of science than average. Witness, for instance, Jenny McCarthy and her crusade against vaccines. Yes, I realize that she claims not to be "antivaccine," but her actions and words say otherwise. She's also managed to…
oracknows | December 21, 2008As much as I'd love to take credit, the postponement of the appearance of Jenny McCarthy and J.B. Handley on Larry King Live! originally scheduled for last night had nothing to do with me. Really. The cancellation was apparently announced shortly after my post appeared, leaving no time for it to have had an effect. Heck, for all I know the cancellation had occurred before I posted and I just hadn't noticed.
Despite all the insinuations of dire conspiracies in the comments of the Age of Autism post on the cancellation, it's far more likely that Larry King probably just didn't want to work on…
oracknows | December 20, 2008The other day, I had a bit of fun with an "old friend," namely J. B. Handley, founder of the antivaccine organization Generation Rescue and now third banana on the antivaccine front to Jenny McCarthy and her boy-toy Jim Carrey. Displeased at my little jabs, he showed up in the comments spewing his usual antivaccine canards and misinformation about various studies before, like Brave Sir Robin, turning his tale to flee, bragging that he was "off to do another interview."
Now I know what "interview" he's heading off to. Forwarded to me was this e-mail:
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20th
Join Generation…
clock | December 19, 2008You may have heard the story that Scarlett Johansson had a cold when she appeared on Jay Leno's show the other day. And you may have heard that she got the cold from her 'The Spirit' co-star Samuel L. Jackson. And you may have heard that she had to blow her nose into a tissue during the show. And you may have heard that this particular tissue is now up for sale on eBay. And you may have heard that all proceeds of this sale will benefit USA Harvest, the charity of Scarlett Johansson's choice.
What you may not know is that, due to the content of the tissue being regarded as biohazard (or even…
amillikan | December 19, 2008When doctors opened the skull of a 3-day old from Colorado Springs to remove what they thought was a brain tumor, they were surprised to find a collection of organized body parts—including two small feet, a partial hand and intestines. "This was the most well-organized 'tumor' I've ever heard of," said ScienceBlogger PZ Myers, who discusses similar cases of developmental abnormalities on his blog, Pharyngula.
oracknows | December 19, 2008I'm a connoisseur of woo.
It's true. Back when I first started blogging, I came across outrageous bits of pseudoscience such as the ones I feature periodically on Your Friday Dose of Woo, and I wasn't sure quite what to do with them. Indeed, I had a hard time deciding if some of them were massive Sokal-type hoaxes or evenif the person writing them really believed in them. Of course, I had a lot of fun taking them on. How could I not? After all, what else can one make of something like, for example, DNA Activation or "healing sounds," or even for that matter that unholy alliance of…
ddobbs | December 18, 2008As Obama solidifies his teams on science, education, and environment, attention -- and not a little worry from the drug industry -- is turning toward his hunt for a new FDA commissioner. The WSJ Health Blog reports that the FDA Commissioner Coalition, which is heavy with groups financed by the drug industry, appears increasingly concerned that Obama will appoint outspoken critics of drugmakers and the FDA, such as Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven Nissen or Baltimore health commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, who is heading Obama's FDA assessment team.
While the coalition prominently talks…
sb admin | December 18, 2008A (long) while back, I gave you a brief explanation of what an "internist" is. I later gave you a personal view of primary care medicine and some of the challenges involved in creating an infrastructure of primary care (only 2% of American medical grads are going into primary care). We also had a little chat about medical mistakes and medical training.
No matter what changes we ultimately make in the way we train internists, one of the lessons that residency teaches is to identify who is truly sick. I don't mean who is faking it, I mean being able to look at someone briefly and decide…