medicine
oracknows | October 9, 2008Well that didn't take long, did it?
Three days ago, I described a study that I had noticed in the October 1 issue of Cancer Research that described an animal study that strongly suggested that vitamin C administered at sufficiently high doses may interfere with the action of multiple chemotherapeutic agents. You can read the link for full details of the study as discussed by yours truly. In fact, although I only blog sporadically about the exaggerated claims of advocates of vitamin C as a cancer cure, but when I do I like to think I hit the mark, starting two and a half years ago when I wrote…
jstemwedel | October 8, 2008Charles B. Nemeroff, M.D., Ph.D., is a psychiatrist at Emory University alleged by congressional investigators to have failed to report a third of the $2.8 million (or more) he received in consulting fees from pharmaceutical companies whose drugs he was studying.
Why would congressional investigators care? For one thing, during the period of time when Nemeroff received these consulting fees, he also received $3.9 million from NIH to study the efficacy of five GlaxoSmithKline drugs in the treatment of depression. When the government ponies up money for scientific research, it has an interest…
oracknows | October 8, 2008Here we go again.
It seems just yesterday that I was casting a skeptical eye on yet another dubious acupuncture study. OK, it wasn't just yesterday, but it was less than two weeks ago when I discussed why a study that purported to show that acupuncture worked as well as drug therapy for hot flashes due to breast cancer therapy-induced menopause. Unfortunately, these days these sorts of dubious studies seem to be popping up fast and furious like Whac-A-Mole, so much so that I can't always keep up with them. So it is again, although this time it's acupressure, not acupuncture. Unfortunately,…
sb admin | October 7, 2008I've written quite a bit about diabetes here and at my old blog, and I've explained to you how controlling blood pressure and cholesterol in diabetics prevents macrovascular disease, such as heart attack and stroke. I've also explained how controlling blood sugar prevents microvascular disease such as kidney failure and blindness. In type II diabetics, controlling blood sugar prevents disability and sometimes death. In type I diabetics, controlling diabetes with insulin is the only way to prevent a swift and painful death. Most non-diabetics, however, don't know the details of how we…
oracknows | October 7, 2008...it'll be because the flu vaccine poisoned me, of course!
That's right. Today I got my flu shot, complete with thimerosal and formaldehyde! I do put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. No word on whether there was any of the dreaded Polysorbate 80 in the vaccine, though. Oh, well. Maybe next time.
Also, while we're at it, my latest post over at The ScienceBlogs Book Club is up and ready for your perusal. Read it, enjoy it, trash it if you like. Just don't ignore it.
You know how much I hate it when my posts are ignored.
oracknows | October 7, 2008For women undergoing menopause, hot flashes are a real problem. In my specialty, as I've pointed out before, women undergoing treatment for breast cancer are often forced into premature menopause by the treatments to which we subject them. It can be chemotherapy, although far more often it's the estrogen-blocking drugs that we use to treat breast cancers that have the estrogen receptor. Estrogen stimulates such tumors to grow, and blocking estrogen is a very effective treatment for them, be it with tamoxifen or the newer aromatase inhibors like Arimidex. The utterly predictable consequence,…
oracknows | October 6, 2008Sometimes I have to look for blog ideas, trolling through various alternative medicine sites, medical news sites, or science news feeds or my medical and science journals. Sometimes ideas fall on me seemingly out of the blue. This is one of the latter situations. This time around, as I do twice a month I was perusing the very latest issue of Cancer Research, hot off the presses October 1. As I did so, it didn't take me long to come across an article from the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia entitled Vitamin C Antagonizes the…
sb admin | October 6, 2008Yesterday, we looked at how real science works; today, in a repost from my old blog, we look at some really bad science. --PalMD
I've been meaning to touch on "Morgellons disease" (a form of delusional parasitosis) for a while, but haven't figured out how to approach it. Thankfully, others have. In the first referenced discussion, a paper was cited. This paper was such a great example of how not to approach medical science that I just had to address it in detail, section by section...
Background
The authors argue for a newly described illness which they call "Morgellons". It resembles…
scientificactivist | October 6, 2008The winners of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine have been announced, and the prize has been awarded for early discoveries that have subsequently led to vaccines or treatments of two widespread virus-caused diseases. Half of the prize was awarded to Harald zur Hausen "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer" and one-fourth each was awarded to Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus." For more, check out the official press release or the more detailed description of the prize-winning…
oracknows | October 6, 2008As you may remember, the evening after the Hollywood face of the antivaccine P.R. machine Jenny McCarthy was scheduled to take part in a web chat. At the time, I suggested sending questions in to the Oprah website, to see if any would get through. I'm sure there was some serious screening and vetting of possible questions; so I suggested trying to word them in such a way as to indicate Jenny's ignorance without triggering the censors. Apparently never was heard a discouraging word in the web chat (big surprise there), but apparently one rather clever wag did manage to get a question through…
terrasig | October 5, 2008The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been split between the discoverers of two viruses of major pathophysiological importance.
Half of the prize goes to German Dr prof Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of human papilloma virus as the cause of cervical cancer while the other half went to the French team that discovered human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Françoise Barr´-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier.
Just a few early thoughts: Notably absent from the award is American Robert Gallo, whose role in the HIV discovery has been long disputed. That this Nobel can only be awarded to a…
scientificactivist | October 5, 2008Yesterday, The New York Times reported on the latest prominent medical doctor to be outed for not reporting the vast sums of money he was receiving from drug companies:
One of the nation's most influential psychiatrists earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drug makers from 2000 to 2007, failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income to his university and violated federal research rules, according to documents provided to Congressional investigators.
The psychiatrist, Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University, is the most prominent figure to date in a series…
sb admin | October 4, 2008In my earlier post about HIV therapy (a post I strongly recommend), I wrote, "After entering a cell (never mind how for now), HIV needs to find a way to makes copies of itself, which requires DNA." Because of some recently released data, it's time to look at how HIV enters the cell, and to expand a bit on the biology of HIV infection (but this is really a "Part II" so please refer to the above-linked post, even though this should stand on its own). This will also allow us another glimpse into how real science works. proceeding from observation, though hypothesis, and hypothesis testing.…
oracknows | October 4, 2008Unfortunately, I'm going to be ensconced in my Sanctum Sanctorum most of the day, pounding out text far less fun than the text I like to pound out for Respectful Insolence. However, I have to admit that this video sums up the attitude behind a whole lot of woo that I like to apply a skeptical deconstruction to--with music!
sb admin | October 3, 2008As I continue to fight the good fight against my first respiratory infection of the season, I will serve you a few portions of learnin' from the old blog. --PalMD
Cupping goes back millennia. In the U.S., the marks of cupping are often seen in immigrant communities, particularly those from Southeast Asia, and are often mis-identified as signs of abuse.
It's an interesting practice, with many different explanations, depending on the culture. It's often used to do the cultural equivalent of drawing out "ill humors". Of course, there is no scientific basis for this. Historically it is…
jstemwedel | October 3, 2008
Americans for Medical Progress has produced a new DVD titled Veterinarians - Speaking for Research. (You can get your own free copy at the Americans for Medical Progress website.)
You might consider this DVD a follow-up of their previous DVD, Physicians - Speaking for Research (reviewed here). However, the two are pretty different, perhaps suggesting some differences not only in the intended audiences for the DVDs (veterinarians vs. physicians) but also in the concerns of the segments of the public each set of professionals is likely to encounter.
In this post, I'll first discuss…
sb admin | October 3, 2008As I continue to fight the good fight against my first respiratory infection of the season, I will serve you a few portions of learnin' from the old blog. --PalMD
We've spoken a bit lately of the micro- and macrovascular complications of diabetes. Let's see what that means in real life. One of the most devastating complications of diabetes is amputation, which is often due to the microvascular complication of peripheral neuropathy. This can begin as a tingling, burning pain in the feet, but can lead to loss of sensation. Small injuries can rapidly become limb-threatening...(Warning: Yucky…
oracknows | October 3, 2008...at The ScienceBlogs Book Club has been posted. Go forth and enjoy. As always for these Book Club Posts, no comments are allowed here. Got a response? Hate my guts? Think I'm in the pocket of Big Pharma, Big Government, and the Illuminati, too? At least for this post, say it over there!
clock | October 3, 2008Can You Heal Me Now?
While many Americans view cell phones as indispensable to their social and professional lives, more and more Africans are finding cell phones to be indispensable to good health. In sub-Saharan villages, for example, mobile phones are playing a key role in health care delivery, says Dr. Fay Cobb Payton, an associate professor of information systems and technology in the NC State College of Management.
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"The pervasive use of mobile technology surprised me," she says, noting cellular towers have arrived in many parts of Africa before land lines. "The…