medicine
clock | November 30, 2007Shift Work May Be Cancer Risk:
In an announcement to be published Saturday in the journal Lancet Oncology, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, will label shift work as a "probable cause" of cancer.
The designation -- rooted in the theory that the disruption of circadian rhythms could be a culprit -- puts shift work on a par with ultraviolet radiation or anabolic steroids as suspected carcinogens, but does not say it is a definitive cause of cancer, such as cigarette smoking.
A random schedule of shifts - working a couple of days a week at…
sb admin | November 30, 2007Anaesthetist's Hymn performed by the comedy duo Amateur Transplants, set to the music of Total Eclipse of the Heart.
[P.S. What's this got to do with the brain? Consciousness.]
oracknows | November 29, 2007It looks as though the Jehovah's Witnesses have claimed another life. This time, though, it wasn't an adult, as it was recently. This time, though, through the indoctrination inherent in the Jehovah's Witness religion and, incredibly and inexcusably, the acquiescence of our legal system to their irrational and dubious interpretation of a text written thousands of years before blood transfusion was ever contemplated, the life lost was that of an adolescent:
A 14-year-old boy who refused blood transfusions in his fight against leukemia -- based on religious beliefs -- died Wednesday night in…
oracknows | November 29, 2007...for reaching a milestone in blogging.
One thing that's always puzzled me is why Abel's traffic isn't much higher (and mine lower, to be honest). True, I post much more frequently than he does, but that alone doesn't explain it. (Maybe it's EneMan.) Whatever the case, Abel deserves a much larger readership. There's a disconnect between the quality of his blog and the size of his readership.
oracknows | November 29, 2007We've had one example this week of people with minds so open that their brains fell out at the Oxford Union, which invited Holocaust denier and British National Party leader Nick Griffin to "discuss free speech." Now, sadly, I see another, this time it's the United States government, which has invited die-hard antivaccinationists to be on a major federal panel about autism:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Advocates who believe vaccines may cause autism will join mental health professionals and neurologists on a new federal panel to coordinate autism research and education, the U.S. Health and Human…
scientificactivist | November 29, 2007Two weeks ago, on November 15th, researchers reported in the Journal of Translational Medicine (see citation below) that they had successfully isolated and characterized stem cells from menstrual blood. The researchers, Meng et al., were able to differentiate these cells--called Endometrial Regenerative Cells (ERCs)--into nine distinct cell types, and the stem cells displayed other encouraging characteristics (including rapid proliferation, unique expression of an embryonic stem cell marker, and particularly high production of certain growth factors and matrix metalloproteinases). These…
jstemwedel | November 28, 2007Do you know that feeling one gets that is characteristic of "about to come down with something", where you have an off taste in your mouth and your head feels fuzzy, and it seems like the very best thing you could possibly do is just lay your head on your desk for a few moments and close your eyes?
Yeah. I've had that feeling all day.
However, I have absolutely zero time to actually come down with something at this particular juncture. Therefore, I will be conducting a Mind Over Immune System experiment (not a very scientific one, I'll admit) in which I see whether telling myself sternly…
oracknows | November 28, 2007You've probably heard the oft-repeated charge of "alternative" medicine advocates. If you get into a debate or conversation with one, you can almost count on seeing or hearing it before too long. Indeed, we heard a variant of this very claim yesterday coming from über-woomeister supreme Deepak Chopra. I'm referring, of course, to the rant against "conventional" medicine that medication errors claim 100,000 lives a year. Of course, as Mark pointed out, "conventional" therapies actually work, and because they work there's risk to them. Moreover, its hospitals actually care for seriously ill…
oracknows | November 27, 2007
I was originally planning to do a real science post today. Indeed, there are at least two or three interesting studies that have been released in the last month or two that I've been meaning to write up, you know, to lose the snark and make this a real Science Blog. True, having a little fun deconstructing the silliness of homeopaths or antivaccinationists is educational (not to mention entertaining and so fun). However, very so often I feel the need to get serious, and over the last couple of weeks I think I let the snark run a bit more wild than usual, not counterbalanced as much with…
oracknows | November 26, 2007Fellow ScienceBlogger Abel Pharmboy over at Terra Sig pointed me in the direction of a rather fascinating and disturbing article about physicians being recruited as "thought leaders" by pharmaceutical companies. Abel's discussion is well worth reading for yourself, but I thought I'd chime in my two cents, as always.
From a surgeon's perspective, these sorts of "opportunities" are much different, because most of us general surgeons and surgical oncologists only prescribe a rather limited range of drugs. For example, I rarely prescribe anything other than narcotics for postoperative pain relief…
oracknows | November 26, 2007While contemplating the burning stupidity that is Jenny McCarthy over the weekend as she mindlessly parroted some of the worst misinformation of the antivaccine movement and assured an interviewer that she would , all the while solemnly proclaiming that, were she to have another child she ""wouldn't vaccinate at all, never, ever," all the while objecting to her being portrayed as "antivaccine," I couldn't help but notice perhaps an uptick in the use of a favorite antivax question in reference to vaccines:
"Why are we injecting TOXINS into our babies?"
Jenny McCarthy repeated that question (or…
oracknows | November 25, 2007As usual, The Onion gets it right, particularly the part about all acupuncture being "fake" acupuncture.
By the way, this is the study the article is referring to. Meanwhile, Mark Crislip weighs in on this study and some other recent acupuncture studies.
Hmmm. Why should Dr. Crislip have all the fun. True, counting the study above, I have covered three of the studies1, 2, 3 he discussed in his podcast, but maybe I should take a look at the others...
oracknows | November 24, 2007I've never been able to understand advocates of homeopathy. I just have difficulty understanding how otherwise intelligent people can fall for the bad science, the logical fallacies, and the magical thinking necessary to believe that homeopathy is anything other than glorified water, an elaborate, ritualized placebo. I can understand how such an idea may have taken hold 200 years ago, when Samuel Hahnemann first dreamed up the concept that "like cures like" and that diluting these "like" remedies to an extent that, even a few years after the principles of homeopathy were formalized it was…
oracknows | November 23, 2007I know, I know.
Picking on Jenny McCarthy over her now frequent idiotic statements about autism and her parroting of the myth that vaccines cause autism is like shooting fish in a barrel, boxing a one-armed opponent, playing tennis with a blind man (like the infamous Saturday Night Live sketch from so long ago, in which Stevie Wonder was shown playing tennis), or [insert your favorite metaphor or simile here]. I guess that America really is the land of opportunity, though. After all, where else could such a bubble-head go from being Playboy Playmate of the Year, to a raunchy MTV star who made…
oracknows | November 23, 2007Ah, the day after Thanksgiving. I had wondered whether I would have the wherewithal to actually come up with yet another installment of this blog's usual Friday feature. After all, too much food can lead to a decrement in brain function that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to come up with the goods. It seemed to me to be a perfect opportunity to do a treatment of the top-notch woo that you've all come to expect. Fortunately, there's a bit of woo hanging around that I've wanted to have some fun with. This woo is top-shelf, as you will see. The only problem is that I'm not 100%…
oracknows | November 22, 2007While I'm making a huge indentation in the couch cushions and digesting my repast, here's some good blog carnival reading for you all to peruse:
Grand Rounds, vol. 4, no. 9 (from Mexico)
Tangled Bank #93
Until tomorrow...
oracknows | November 21, 2007It's that time again.
Oh, it's a day early because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but it's here nonetheless. It's time for the 74th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, this time hosted over at Med Journal Watch. I can't figure out why Christian is being heckled by skeptics, though, as he gives his address.
Don't forget that it won't be long before the next Skeptics' Circle comes around the pike. In fact, it will be longer than usual, thanks to the early appearance of this edition. The next meeting of the Skeptics' Circle will appear on Thursday, December 6 and will be hosted by Pro-Science, a blog…
oracknows | November 21, 2007I once blogged about an article attempting to address the very question in the title of this post, and I've also discussed in depth how messy the process of evidence-based medicine can be and why that provides an opening for purveyors of "alternative medicine" (my preferred term to describe it being "non-evidence-based medicine") to respond to complaints about the lack of evidence supporting their favored woo with a hearty but fallacious tu quoque.
One of the favorite claims of purveyors of non-evidence-based "alternative" medicine is that modern scientific medicine is actually not very…
palmd | November 21, 2007They media is often full of hype about "health foods". True "health food", to quote Michael Pollan, probably means, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.'' That being said, chemical compounds isolated from natural substances (foods included) are an important line of medical research and can lead to insights on the health effects of food, and on drug development. The latest issue of Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, has a lovely little article about the cardiac effects of chocolate---and who doesn't care about chocolate?
Reading a scientific article is often a…