Natural toxins
terrasig | December 7, 2009Alexa Ray Joel, the daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, was hospitalized Saturday with what I originally thought was an overdose of some type of sedative.
However, today's Newsday and MTV are reporting that the family is calling this an overdose of a homeopathic medication called Traumeel. Traumeel is manufacturer by an Albuquerque-based company called Heel USA, a company founded by a German physician in the 1920s.
If Traumeel is truly homeopathic, there is absolutely no way this product could have caused Joel's hospitalization.
If you are new to our blog, you may not know the…
terrasig | May 4, 2009My clinical counterpart, surgical oncologist Dr David Gorski, has an excellent post up today at Science-Based Medicine on the irresponsible and misleading information being provided at The Huffington Post during the current H5N1/2009 influenza ("swine flu") outbreak. "The Huffington Post's War on Medical Science: A Brief History" provides a cautionary tale for us in embracing web-based news sources as our excellent print newspapers are going by the wayside.
Within the post, Dr Gorski shows that he is even more familiar with my writing than myself by citing a post at the old Terra Sig on the…
terrasig | February 29, 2008Bisphenol A (BPA) is currently one of the major lightning rods for controversy in consumer products and public health research. The compound is used in the manufacture of plastic bottles, polycarbonate (PC) in particular, as well as in the lining of many food and beverage cans. The compound has been recognized since the 1930s as having estrogenic activity but it appears to have developmental, carcinogenic, and neurotoxic effects at concentrations well below those at which it binds to the two forms of estrogen receptor.
Confused?
US governmental advisory committees can't even agree on BPA…
terrasig | November 19, 2007As we approach 100,000 visitors since joining ScienceBlogs I am amazed to still be getting 500-700 visits per month at the old home of Terra Sigillata, all without any promotion or new posts. The most-visited of the old posts is the following which appeared originally on 21 February 2006.
Much of humankind's experience with pharmacologically-active natural products has been through the mind-altering effects of plants used in religious ceremonies.
Today [21 Feb 2006], the US Supreme Court upheld a decision to permit a New Mexico sect of a Brazilian religious order to continue using an…
terrasig | October 31, 2007Welcome, Reader: This post was updated on Halloween 2009 to remedy linkrot and add an interesting tidbit on the famous Macbeth passage. As it is likely you ended up here via a search engine, click here to go to the updated post.
Have you ever wondered, perhaps on 31 October, why witches are depicted as riding brooms?
The answer is alluded to by Karmen Franklin at Chaotic Utopia in her post as to why witches need to know their plant biology.
The excerpts I'm about to give you come from a superb and accessible pharmacology text entitled, "Murder, Magic, and Medicine," by John Mann, host of…
terrasig | December 11, 2006Among the many duties charged to the US FDA is the safety of veterinary feed. Therefore, equestrian enthusiasts should take note of the following warning from the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine on natural contamination of certain corn products with a toxin produced by an endophytic fungus of the Fusarium genus:
FDA Warns Horse Owners About Fumonisins in Horse Feed
Each year, a number of horses die from eating corn or corn byproducts containing fumonisins. Fumonisins are a group of toxins produced by an endophytic mold found within the corn kernel. Typically, fumonisins are produced…