medicine
oracknows | February 24, 2007In case you didn't know, here are instructions for opening your bowels (via Clusterfock, Kottke, and Kevin, MD):
I wonder if I've been doing it wrong all these years. I mean, I don't think I've ever used a footrest...
oracknows | February 24, 2007Remember how I alluded to the fact that perhaps I've been doing a little too much blogging about dichloroacetate and the unscrupulous "entrepreneurs" who are taking advantage of desperate cancer patients to sell the stuff to them? Well, I can't resist mentioning something truly amusing that I just noticed.
The "health freedom" warriors and "entrepreneurs" responsible for The DCA Site and BuyDCA.com appear to have noticed me and my humble efforts.
How do I know that they've noticed me? Remember the long exchange between Heather Nordstrom and two people questioning the ethics and legality of…
grrlscientist | February 23, 2007tags: Gardasil, gay men
Gardasil is a newly released vaccine that protects against the four most common forms of the sexually transmitted infection, human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. It can also cause anal and penile cancer, and men argue that receiving the vaccine would guard against these as well. As a result, many private clinics are offering the vaccine to men. One clinic in London says it has immunised dozens of men in the last six weeks.
As in America, Gardasil has caused controversy since it was launched in the UK because it is designed to…
oracknows | February 22, 2007At least this time the surgeons aren't disgracing my profession by making ignorant statments about evolution. Well, actually, I almost wish they were, because puffed up idiots pontificating about evolution at least don't put patients in immediate danger like this:
A routine appendix operation in Belgrade went badly wrong when two surgeons started fighting and stormed from the operating theatre to settle their dispute outside, the daily Politika reported on Wednesday.
Surgeon Spasoje Radulovic was operating when his colleague Dragan Vukanic entered and made a remark that started a quarrel,…
oracknows | February 22, 2007I've probably beat this one into the ground over the last couple of days; so this will be uncharacteristically brief, because it's time to move on. Also, it was fun to see DaveScot go into paroxysms to try to justify the dangerous, unethical, and reckless actions of Heather Nordstrom and her stepfather in setting up The DCA Site and its sister site, BuyDCA.com, where Heather et al are selling "Pet-DCA" in a ludicrously obvious (and probably ineffective) ploy to be able to claim to the FDA, "Hey, we're not selling this for human consumption." One wonders, perhaps, if DaveScot may actually have…
tfk | February 21, 2007The bill's sponsor was philosophical:
“So that's not going to happen this year, it looks like. I think as far as legislation goes, no, as far as education and activity, yes. I mean if anything that's the bottom line that has been. We're very proud of the inroads we've made in educating some of my colleagues and the public on this and we will be continuing to do so,” Garcia explained.
HPV causes cancer and genital warts. A childhood vaccine could save lives, and making it mandatory is the best way to eliminate the virus and ultimately the diseases it causes. Alas, Kansan girls will have to…
grrlscientist | February 21, 2007Malaria is one of the top three deadliest diseases in the developing world. It is resurging worldwide because of resistance to drugs and the lack of an effective vaccine. But now, Northwestern University researchers have discovered how malaria parasites persuade red blood cells to engulf them -- and how to block the invading parasites. The malaria marauders hack into the red cell's signaling system and steal the molecular equivalent of its password to spring open the door to the cell. But researchers have found that a common blood pressure medication -- propranolol -- jams the signal to…
oracknows | February 21, 2007Fellow ScienceBloggers Ed, PZ, Afarensis, Tim, and John have all been having loads of fun beating up on a rather amusing and pathetic project known as Conservapedia, which, according to its creators, is designed to "combat the liberal bias" in Wikipedia. There's not much for me to add, except that I noticed one particularly amusing howler in Conservapedia's Examples of Liberal Bias in Wikipedia page:
Wikipedia's entry for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a conservative group, features a rant against the group by a British journalist who was a former press officer for the…
oracknows | February 21, 2007Yesterday, I wrote about how anti-science pro-"intelligent design" kook extraordinaire Dave Springer (a.k.a. DaveScot) has taken to promoting dichloroacetate as a treatment for cancer and one website in particular, The DCA Site that claims to exist to "help inform people of the exciting research done on DCA [dichloroacetate] by scientists at the University of Alberta. In January 2007 a team of scientists at the University of Alberta published a paper in the scientific journal Cancer Cell describing the discovery that a simple, cheap molecule, DCA, worked to reactivate the apoptosis mechanism…
ksharpe | February 21, 2007Couples who find the pill problematic and condoms cumbersome may be interested in a study out today in the journal Human Reproduction. The report, lead authored by Petra Frank-Hermann, a professor in the Department of Gynecological Endocrinology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, followed 900 women who practice a form of natural family planning called the symptothermal method (STM). Frank-Hermann's team concluded that perfect use of STM resulted in unintended pregnancy rates of 0.4 percent, making for a highly favorable comparison in rates of effectiveness between STM and the…
grrlscientist | February 20, 2007Asia is being swamped with an epidemic of counterfeit drugs and the problem is spreading. Malaria medicines have been particularly hard hit; in a recent sampling in Southeast Asia, 53 percent of the antimalarials bought were fakes. But conterfeit antibiotics, tuberculosis drugs, AIDS drugs and even meningitis vaccines have also been found. These counterfeit drugs cause the untimely deaths of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people every year. For example, the World Health Organization estimates that one-fifth of the one million annual deaths from malaria could be prevented…
oracknows | February 20, 2007The latest Grand Rounds has been posted at the abode of fellow ScienceBlogger Pure Pedantry. This time, it's with an Oscar theme! Go and sample the best medical blogging of the last week.
oracknows | February 20, 2007I hadn't planned on writing about dichloroacetate, the inexpensive compound whose success in treating experimental cancer in rats that provoked a blogopheric storm about a "cancer cure" that would supposedly never see the light of day because it's not patentable. After all, I've done about seven posts on the topic, give or take a couple, in the course of the last four weeks or so. That's saturation blogging, and, really, nothing new has happened on the news front that merits a new post.
Or so I thought.
Then, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III, just when I thought that I was out…
purepedantry | February 20, 2007Hi everyone, and welcome to Grand Rounds, vol. 3 no. 22.
The Oscars are this Sunday, and -- since I know we all look forward to this yearly 4-hour marathon of farcical self-absorption -- this edition of Grand Rounds will be themed according to movies nominated for awards this year.
However, I have been informed that a fair number of GR's readers are not from the US and are unfamiliar with our peculiar brand of navel gazing. Thus, let me summarize what happens during the Academy Awards:
-- The American public (and a fair number of other people) will participate in the World Cup of…
omnibrain | February 19, 2007A study from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Center in Australia has shown that nearly a third of people under the age of 30 think marijuana is totally uncool. Drug abuse is clearly a problem that has to be dealt with through education and treatment programs (don't get me started on the war on drugs though). The only problem with this statistic is that people might think marijuana is uncool for totally inaccurate reasons that they pick up either through a lack of education (or even more bothersome - mis-education).
It seems that a possible reason that people believe pot is so…
oracknows | February 19, 2007This one's been floating around the science blogosphere for about a week or two now. I tried to resist its pull, but finally I have given in and decided that, if you've got it, flaunt it, baby!
In any case, I'm talking about a bunch of merit badges for scientists (a.k.a. "The Order of Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique," although I may not qualify for that latter part.
And which ones did I earn? Well, take a look (click on the badges to see what each one signifies):
(Sadly, I'm not likely ever to duplicate that last one.)
And, finally, the one…
oracknows | February 19, 2007You know, I'm really tired of this.
I'm tired of my fellow physicians with a penchant for spouting scientifically ignorant "attacks" on or "doubts" about evolution. It embarrasses the hell out of me around ScienceBlogs, and I really wish they would stop it. Sadly, it seems to be an increasingly long list. Although I first noticed it when former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (who is a cardiac surgeon) voiced support for "intelligent design" back in 2005, this tendency among my fellow physicians to pontificate on their distaste for evolution didn't start to irritate me really seriously…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007"The brain is soft," writes Katrina Firlik in her book, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe (NYC: Random House, 2006). "Some of my colleagues compare it to toothpaste but that's not quite right. Tofu -- the soft variety, for those who know tofu -- may be a more accurate comparison." So begins the interesting tale of the residency of the first female neurosurgeon in America.
After briefly introducing her reader to the history of neurosurgery, Firlik moves on to describe the nature of her specialty, which she says is a combination of science and mechanics. Unlike neurologists and psychiatrists,…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2007Tuberculosis is a stubborn infection that takes takes six months to treat effectively. As a result, this is the source of many problems in developing countries and when dealing with the homeless. However, doctors from London's St George's Medical School will test a combination of two antibiotics on 1,200 patients in four African countries. These two antobiotics, rifapentine and moxifloxacin, are already in use for this purpose, but are used separately.
This trial, which will start in July, is aimed to both test the effectiveness and safety of the drug combination and to see if a four-month…
grrlscientist | February 16, 2007Born after just 24 weeks of gestation and weighing only 1lb 8oz., Lewis Goodfellow was a premature baby. Worse, one of his lungs failed so he was unable to get enough oxygen into his bloodstream. Things became so dire for this infant that the family began to make funeral arrangements.
However, doctors at the Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary in the UK then decided to try an experiment that might save the baby's life: Viagra (Sildenafil). Viagra is more commonly associated with male impotence, but it works by opening up small blood vessels in the body. Doctors hoped it would do the same for…