medicine
oracknows | August 15, 2008I was called upon once before, and now I'm called upon again. Jenny McCarthy needs me:
From: "Jenny McCarthy" volunteer@generationrescue.org
Reply-to: volunteer@generationrescue.org
To: orac@scienceblogs.com
Date: Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 11:26 AM
Subject: News From Jenny McCarthy
Become a Rescue Angel Today!
Dear Orac,
It's Jenny!
Please join my team and help other families!
I'm about to go on tour to promote my new book, Mother Warriors, which hits the bookstores everywhere, September 23rd (38 days from now!). I will also be on all the major talk shows showing the world that autism is…
oracknows | August 15, 2008I don't know who Kent Sepkowitz is other than that he he's an infectious disease specialist in New York and that he writes for Slate. I also know he's written about penis enlargement, his dislike of magazines' "best doctor" lists (a sentiment with which I can agree, actually), and that he has suggested that Americans should "eat more excrement." What I didn't know is that he was capable of slinging said excrement around (at least, the excrement left over after Americans eat more of it, I suppose), specifically slinging excrement about so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM)…
sb admin | August 14, 2008OK, if you insist. This comes with the usual caveat directed at scientists that I know this is oversimplified, but I wish to reach the largest audience possible. Feel free to correct my mistakes, but please don't bother me about oversimplification.
So here's the deal. Several decades ago, it became scientifically fashionable to believe that most cancer had a viral cause. This belief coincided with the discovery that some viruses do cause cancer. And while it turns out that most cancers are not caused by viruses (probably), many of them are. Viruses can cause cancers in a number of ways…
purepedantry | August 14, 2008I was distressed to hear that Bernie Mac died last Saturday of pneumonia at the age of 50. I always thought he was pretty funny, and I was a big fan of the Ocean's Eleven movies where he played a prominent part. I also raised an eyebrow when I heard that he was only 50 because 50-year-olds do not typically die of pneumonia unless they are in some way immunosuppressed -- either from medications or from some condition like HIV.
Even though it wasn't the immediate cause of his death, Mac fought a poorly understood disease called sarcoidosis which may explain why he would be particularly…
oracknows | August 14, 2008We seem to have an infestation of a couple of very persistent anti-vaccinationist trolls. (It happens; every so often someone new thinks they can take me and my readers on. They're usually pretty quickly disabused of that notion.) That infestation is why I thought now would be an opportune time to refer my readers to a post that shows the world to which we could return if the anti-vaccine contingent gets its way. Written by the always irascibly sarcastic Dr. Mark Crislip of Quackcast, it's entitled Amanda Peet is My Hero (1).
Remember, Dr. Crislip is an infectious disease specialist. As he…
oracknows | August 14, 2008It looks as though at least a couple of my readers have taken to heart my suggestion that, if the pro-CAM, "no skeptics need apply" new wikipedia known as Wiki4CAM won't allow any scientific evidence to be posted within its pages if it does not support the CAM therapy being discussed, then perhaps we should go all Sokal on it and post the most outlandish forms of CAM we can think of in order to see whether any of the editors at Wiki4CAM actually notices, and if anyone does how long it takes.
Thus far, we have two skeptics who have taken up the challenge, one choosing a more subtle--shall we…
oracknows | August 14, 2008It's been quite a while since I wrote about this topic, but, quite frankly, I didn't think anything new was likely to come up that would interest me sufficiently to take it on again. I was almost right; it's been well over two years since the last time I discussed the issue of whether or not vitamin C has any role in treating cancer.
When last I left the topic, two studies had been released that were being widely cited as a "vindication" of Linus Pauling. As you may recall, Pauling was the Nobel Laureate who succumbed to what's sometimes called the "Nobel disease" in that he turned into a…
clock | August 13, 2008My old friend John Burns is in jail! OK, he voluntarily went there. But, the only way he can get out is if he pays bail, and the only way he can pay bail is if you donate to the Muscular Dystrophy Assocation in his name!
* $85 -Fund One Minute of Research
* $100 - Support Group Session
* $800 - Send one child to MDA Summer Camp
* $2,000 - Assist with Wheelchair or Leg Braces
clock | August 13, 2008Dog to Sport New High-Tech Leg:
A German shepherd mix named Cassidy now has a chance to walk on all fours again, thanks to a surgical procedure conducted at NC State that has implications for the future of human prosthetics.
During a four-hour procedure last Thursday at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Denis Marcellin-Little, associate professor of orthopedics, inserted a titanium implant into the bone of Cassidy's missing right hind leg. In three months, after the implant has time to fuse with the bone, Cassidy's missing leg will be fitted with an osseointegrated prosthetic limb.…
oracknows | August 13, 2008THWOMP!
THWOMP! THWOMP!
TWHOMP! THWOMP! TWHOMP!
That's the sound of me hitting my head against the table. Hard.
What provoked this reaction in me is Medscape, specifically an article that my blog bud PalMD turned me on to. That the article, entitled HPV Vaccine Deemed Safe and Effective, Despite Reports of Adverse Events, seems to have been written in response to criticism of its previous article on the HPV vaccine Gardasil, both by me and others, criticism that led Medscape to quietly pull the old article, makes the resultant article seem even worse, particularly in wake of a truly dumb poll…
oracknows | August 12, 2008By this stage of the game, I'm guessing that you're probably as tired of the 2008 Presidential race as I am. Too bad there are still nearly three months of this nonsense to go, and, although John McCain has gone deep into the stupid with ads featuring comparisons of his opponent with Paris Hilton, even Barack Obama doesn't seem entirely immune from attacks of pandering himself, proposing as he has, to eliminate income taxes on seniors. Of course, this being August, and all, the slowest news month of the year, coupled with the--heh--traditional wisdom that no one really pays attention to the…
oracknows | August 12, 2008It's been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
- Led Zeppelin
Not nearly long enough.
- Orac
Some rats never die, it would appear.
You may recall last year, when I spend a considerable amount of verbiage writing about a promising cancer drug called dichloroacetate (DCA). There were many reasons. One reason was that the drug was being represented as a "cure" for cancer that big pharma wouldn't fund because it was outside of its patent. There was also plenty of fascinating cancer biology there to…
oracknows | August 11, 2008Seen and photographed on E. 44th St., about a block or two from the United Nations building:
Acupuncture, energy balancing, this guy's got it all--because nothing's too good for our diplomats.
oracknows | August 11, 2008Seen in a bookstore in the Delta terminal at LaGuardia:
It makes perfect sense. What's left after fleecing millions of gullible readers selling books about "alternative" medicine and secret cures "they" don't want you to know about? Fleecing millions of gullible readers by selling books rife financial scams, of course. (I wonder how many pyramid schemes--excuse me, multilevel marketing investment opportunites"--are within this new book.) Of course, Kevin Trudeau definitely knows about financial scams. After all, he did spend time in jail for swindling banks and another for bilking his…
oracknows | August 11, 2008While I was away over the weekend, a reader made me aware of a new development in the world of "alternative"--excuse me, "complementary and alternative"--medicine (a.k.a. CAM). I suppose I should have seen this coming. In retrospect, given the proliferation of wikis of seemingly every shape and for seemingly every purpose, it was inevitable that someone, somewhere would put together a wiki for CAM, known as the Wiki4CAM: Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Encyclopedia.
My first thought was that maybe I should register. Certainly I could edit some articles, although, despite what…
sb admin | August 10, 2008To wear the mantle of Galileo, it is not enough to be persecuted: you must also be right.
--Robert Park
I used to spend a lot of time on the websites of Joe Mercola and Gary Null, the most influential medical cranks of the internets (to call them "quacks" would imply that they are real doctors, but bad ones---I will no longer dignify them with the title of "quack"). I've kept away from them for a while in the interest of preserving my sanity. Unfortunately, Orac reminded me this week of the level searingly stupid and dangerous idiocy presented by these woo-meisters.
In light of this, it…
oracknows | August 9, 2008...that I and a bunch of other ScienceBloggers will be at the following location from 2-4 PM today:
Details:
2pm-4pm on Saturday, August 9
Social
795 8th Ave (close to 49th St.)
New York, NY 10019
A couple of warnings:
Point one:
I'm a lot more boring and unassuming in person than I am on the blog. Really. Just ask my family and friends. As PZ would say, I don't breath fire or eviscerate alt-med mavens. If you're expecting the same level of scintillating (or not-so-scintillating) wit seen here, you're likely to be disappointed. Fortunately, my fellow ScienceBloggers will more than take up the…
clock | August 9, 2008Aggregator of RSS Feeds about disability and special needs issues, another one made by Vedran. As always, you can contact him with suggestions for more feeds to add.
sb admin | August 8, 2008OK, this post gets a big IANAL stamped across it. I don't know the legal ins and outs here (and I'm not sure if anyone does), but the new announcement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regarding laptop computers puts physicians and other health care providers in a bit of a spot.
HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is the law that governs the privacy of your medical information. It is very, very detailed, and requires quite a bit from your doctor. You've signed a form at the office of every provider you've visited that notifies you of your privacy…
clock | August 8, 2008Aggregator of news about infectious diseases, another one made by Vedran. As always, you can contact him with suggestions for more feeds to add.