medicine
clock | December 18, 2008Listen here to the The December 16, 2008 David E. Barmes Global Health Lecture given by Dr.Harold Varmus:
Harold Varmus, former Director of the National Institutes of Health and co-recipient of a Nobel Prize for studies of the genetic basis of cancer, is President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Dr. Varmus chairs the Scientific Board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health program and leads the Advisory Committee for the Global Health Division. He was a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Macroeconomics…
oracknows | December 18, 2008You may have noticed that I've been laying off the antivaccination movement recently. Indeed, it's been over two weeks since I last mentioned the topic, and then I only did so by briefly citing a post by Steve Novella. For this blog, aside from vacations, that has to be a record.
Truth be told, periodically I get really burned out on the topic, as I've pointed out from time to time. I frequently make jokes about the thermonuclearly burning stupid that regularly emanates from such "luminaries" of the antivaccine movement as Jenny McCarthy, David Kirby, Dan Olmsted, J. B. Handley, and others.…
ddobbs | December 17, 2008
Other deadlines bar elaboration, but I wanted to draw attention to some worthwhile reading:
A good Wired Science story explores how "Free Range Research Could Save Chimps, the notion that Oil is Not the Climage Change Culprit -- It's All About Coal, and the Christmas Tree Cluster (of stars).
The Sterile Eye posts a video of a total gastrectomy.
World of Psychology has a particularly good "Mental Health Year in Review" article that reviews research highlights, the flaps over conflicts of interest and disclosure, the controversy over the legitimacy of the pediatric bipolar disorder…
oracknows | December 17, 2008Having been sucked into the blogosphere for over four years now and having gotten the majority of my news online or from newsmagazines or the New York Times, I frequently forget that I'm not like the vast majority of people. Neither, I daresay, are my fellow ScienceBloggers or my readers. We don't get our information from the same sources, and we tend towards a lot more scientific sophistication than the average American. This is not to brag or to claim superiority; it is simply an observation that may help explain to some extent why those of us in the science blogosphere have a hard time…
j7uy5 | December 17, 2008Ovation Pharmaceuticals obtained the rights to a drug developed by
Merck, Indocin IV. It is used as a medical treatment for
href="http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/pda/pda_what.html">patent
ductus arteriosus. PDA is a type of birth defect in
the heart. It is serious.
It is helpful to have a medication that is an alternative to surgery.
The following year, they obtained the rights to Neoprofen, a similar
drug used for the same purpose.
Then, they raised the price. Instead of $108 for a course of
treatment, it now costs $1,500. I suppose that you could say
that it…
oracknows | December 16, 2008When confronted with skeptics who refuse to stay silent in the face of quackery--I'm sorry, "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), a large proportion of which is unproven if not outright quackery--shruggies frequently ask, "What's the harm?" I can reply that so many of these modalities are no more than elaborate placebos reinforced with magical thinking. I can explain why science- and evidence-based medicine is superior. I can even point out that the blandishments of quacks all too frequently convince people to forego or delay effective medical therapy, allowing them to become sicker…
oracknows | December 16, 2008Just as a quick followup to my post on Tong Ren, the quackery that combines acupuncture, "energy healing," and, in essence, the stereotype of voodoo dolls in a veritable potpourri of woo, take a look at this news report done by the FOX News affiliate in Boston:
If you want horrible, credulous, idiotic reporting, the above segment has it all. Indeed, it doesn't even include the usual obligatory brief sound bite from a skeptic! True, it does mention that the Massachusetts State Board of Medicine's Committee on Acupuncture had received complaints about Tom Tam for his claiming to be a "master…
amillikan | December 16, 2008As the time of the year approaches when influenza virus is most rampantly transmitted, ScienceBloggers are assesing current influenza vaccination practices and questioning how shortcomings in them could play out in a pandemic situation, which experts predict could arise in the near future. To help prevent contracting the flu this season, ScienceBogger PalMd advises frequent hand washing.
oracknows | December 16, 2008After four years and five days of nearly continuous blogging about skepticism, quackery, science- and evidence-based medicine, and a variety of other topics, you'd think there wouldn't be much that I haven't seen before. Certainly, lately, I've been wondering lately if there was anything left that could surprise me or horrify me anymore, and jaded is not a good way to be as a blogger. Indeed, in retrospect, I wonder if jadedness was why I had to stop Your Friday Dose of Woo for a while, the death of my dog notwithstanding, and why I'm happier now that I no longer feel obligated to do it every…
ddobbs | December 15, 2008As time goes on, it seems the benefits offered by modern antidepressants seem to drop while the downsides seem to expand. A story in today's Boston Globe -- excerpted below -- suggests that up to half of people who take SSRIs suffer significant sexual side-effects.
Sexual "numbness." Lack of libido. Arousal that stalls.
Such sexual symptoms have long been known side effects of the popular Prozac class of antidepressants, but a growing body of research suggests that they are far more common than previously thought, perhaps affecting half or more of patients....
Current warnings on the labels…
oracknows | December 15, 2008Three goodies on skepticism and science:
Skeptical Battlegrounds: Part III - Alternative Medicine. Suffice it to say, Steve agrees with me. He just lays it all out in one post instead of ten.
Once again, Egnor and Tautologies. Blogchild Mark Chu-Carroll takes on our favorite creationist neurosurgeon, Dr. Egnor. This time he deals directly with something I've touched upon recently: Egnor's false labeling of the theory of evolution as a tautology.
Alternative Medicine's Rapid Spread? Nonsense. Oddly enough, Avery Camarow, whose articles I've taken issue with before for credulity towards the…
oracknows | December 15, 2008Several months ago, I wrote a post about the experimentation with acupuncture by an Air Force physician, Col. Robert Niemtzow. In the post, I started with an admittedly exaggerated vignette--a story, if you will--of a soldier whose leg was shredded by a mortar in battle. When the medic came to treat his wounds and get him ready for transport, this soldier was in for a surprise, because after applying a tourniquet to his leg, this medic offered him not morphine for his pain but acupuncture. At the time, the military acupuncture program spearheaded by Col. Niemtzow was not proposing anything…
sb admin | December 14, 2008
Yes, it's that time of year again. Last year, I gave you weekly flu updates from the CDC and from my position on the front line.
So far, it's still quiet. I haven't personally seen any cases yet, but I'm sure to soon enough.
It's not too late to get vaccinated. Wash your hands frequently.
Remember what the flu is and is not. Influenza is characterized by the sudden onset of high fevers (usually greater than 102), muscle pain, and sometimes runny nose and cough. If you can get to your doctor within the first 48 hours, there are medications that may help you get better a little bit…
sb admin | December 14, 2008(Tangentially related podcast here)
Here's the thing: all this talk about arrogance in medicine is a red herring. It's distracting us from the real question that we should all be asking: how do we improve quality medical care?
The personality of individual physicians is important, but not very, just as the medical mistakes of individuals have limited significance. As medicine has become more science-based, we have learned some important lessons about how to prevent and treat disease, and while the physician-patient relationship will always be important, as will the relationship between…
clock | December 12, 2008Tending to recent immigrants and other travelers, Carlos Franco-Paredes diagnoses diseases that few other physicians in North America have ever seen:
Q: What's the most important diagnostic tool you use?
A: The Internet. We rely on it heavily, probably more than other specialists do. Online, we access recent medical journals from all over the world, including PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases and the Journal of Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries. They have really good articles written by people on the local level. But beyond that, we use the Internet to keep up on what's happening in…
oracknows | December 12, 2008It figures.
Right around the time of my blogiversary yesterday, when I had intended nothing more than a brief by characteristically self-indulgent bit of navel-gazing twaddle (at which, I succeeded brilliantly, I might add; no one--and I mean no one--does self-indulgent navel-gazing twaddle better than I do), what should be there tempting me from my intended day off? Lots of news stories about a report published by the Centers for Disease Control about a yearly survey regarding the usage of so-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies in the U.S. Predictably, headlines in…
denialism | December 12, 2008Aside from taking 4th year medical school classes it's also the time of year that medical students who plan to graduate in 2009 (like me) are applying to residency programs across the country. This is an interesting process and one that many people outside of medicine are unfamiliar with, and quite surprised by. For one, did you know that we don't have final say on where we train in residency but that the decision is made by a computer?
It's true. The process is called "the Match" and it's a time of great excitement and anxiety for 4th year medical students. For one, there are far more…
oracknows | December 11, 2008For once, I actually managed not to miss it. For once, this day hasn't passed me by, leaving me not to remember its significance for a couple of days.
For once, I haven't forgotten my blogiversary.
Yes, as hard as it is to believe, I've been at this more or less nonstop just as long as a Presidential term in office. It all began on a dank, overcast Saturday afternoon in December four years ago today. What whim struck me to sit down in front of my computer and use Blogger to create my original blog I have no idea, but I did. Maybe it was because I had become tired of sparring with Holocaust…
sb admin | December 10, 2008Science and medicine reporting is hard. In this space we've dealt with some of the problems that arise when "generalist" reporters try to "do" science and medicine. And now, CNN has shut down its science unit. Given the increasing complexity of medical and scientific knowledge, this is very bad news.
As a fine example of poor medical reporting, let's look at a local business magazine. The article, called "The Fatigue Factor", is about fibromyalgia, and manages to get it wrong from the very beginning.
Some medical reporting is destined to be bad simply because the topic is too complex…
oracknows | December 10, 2008I didn't get to see this interview last night on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. After all, I usually show up at work between 7:00 and 7:30 AM. However, Hugh Laurie, star of House, was interviewed by Conan and revealed himself to be not unlike me in that he's definitely a booster of reason and science in medicine over irrationality and dubious "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) therapies, not unlike the character he plays on House. Check out the interview. (The relevant passage begins at about 23:50 into the show.)
I knew there was a reason I liked Hugh Laurie, even though I haven'…