terrasig | December 9, 2007PZ Myers also noted this story that came via Brandon Haught of Florida Citizens for Science: a Florida Department of Education official used her professional affiliations (albeit via a personal e-mail account) to lobby against evolution being taught as the state updates its science educational standards:
My name is Charlie Carraway and I'm a member of Sopchoppy Southern Baptist Church, Sopchoppy , Florida , but I also work for the Florida Department of Education as the Director of the Office of Instructional Materials. That means I oversee the adoption process in the state, and I work in…
terrasig | December 8, 2007We've been speaking about this issue on behalf of our lymphoma colleagues since late August.
But yesterday's New York Times (Alex Berenson) and Wall Street Journal's Health Blog (Jacob Goldstein) brought greater awareness to the issue of Medicare's proposal to cut reimbursement for "smart-bomb" radioimmunotherapies for lymphomas. So far, it appears that Medicare will move forward with plans to cut reimbursements for two RIT drugs, Bexxar® and Zevalin®, to less than their acquisition costs to hospitals.
This issue had already mobilized Newsweek's Jonathan Alter to write a piercing screed…
terrasig | December 8, 2007I can't do any better than this today:
I finally got around to reading yesterday's Cancer Research Blog Carnival that I cited and was completely entranced by Matthew Zachary's essay in The Huffington Post about his long battle with medulloblastoma. It was posted originally in July and provides outstanding insights on the life of a cancer survivor.
While many oncologists are all too familiar with cases like Matthew's, this is required reading for anyone involved in cancer research, especially us basic scientists whose research is sometimes funded by organizations working toward "The Cure."
Aw…
terrasig | December 7, 2007Yesterday, 6 December was the feast day of Saint Nicholas and that can only mean one thing: the newest batch was Samichlaus bier was brewed in Austria. Samichlaus - Swiss-German for 'Santa Claus' - is recognized widely as one of the world's rarest, finest, and strongest bottom-fermented, or lager, beers. Indeed, it weighs in at a heroic 14% alcohol by volume (ABV). But the special attributes of the beer come from how it is brewed.
The selection you are viewing here was brewed on 6 December 2006 and bottled in October (that's tea in my mug, not Sami, as this picture was taken this morning…
terrasig | December 7, 2007I've been terribly remiss as of late in both promoting and submitting to blog carnivals. However, I wanted to draw your attention to an interesting new carnival and the latest edition of an old stalwart.
The Cancer Research Blog Carnival is hosted this week at nosugrefneb.com/weblog written by Ben Ferguson, an MD/PhD student in cancer biology and a capella jazz singer at the University of Chicago. Ben also writes for Medscape's med student feature, The Differential, and produces the Pritzker Podcasts for prospective students interested in the University of Chicago. In his spare time, he is…
terrasig | December 5, 2007Yet another example in today's press about dietary supplements contaminated, intentionally or accidentally, with prescription or unapproved drugs - in this case, anabolic steroids showing up in about 20% of supplements tested.
I was asked by a major news organization if this is the first time that anabolic steroids have been found in supplements. Nope, look at this FDA action from March 2004 or March 2006.
Ugggh, this is a very old story that I've discussed here many times, mostly relative to erectile dysfunction supplements:
Potentially life-threatening adulteration of erectile dysfunction…
terrasig | December 5, 2007A former research director for a complementary and alternative medicine program at a major academic medical center has just released a book that I must get my hands on. I just learned about "Snake Oil Science" by R. Barker Bausell from a Jerry Adler article in the current issue of Newsweek (10 Dec 2007).
To set the proper context, med bloggers like Orac, Dr. R.W., Panda Bear, MD, Sid Schwab, and we here at Terra Sig have been increasingly expressing concern about the seemingly uncritical integration of alternative medicine programs into some of North America's most respected medical schools…
terrasig | December 3, 2007I was way behind on this story relative to the pharma blogosphere (John Mack's Pharma Marketing Blog, Ed Silverman's Pharmalot, and the WSJ Health Blog), but Montel Williams has created a PR disaster for Partnership for Prescription Assistance of the industry group, PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America).
While promoting prescription assistance programs in Savannah on Friday, Williams blew up, as it were, at a Savannah Morning News high school intern. The intern, Courtney Scott, asked Williams, "Do you think pharmaceutical companies would be discouraged from research…
terrasig | December 3, 2007With the help of the good people at Patients Against Lymphoma, we've been following the ruling by Medicare that costs of radioimmunotherapeutics for lymphoma would now only be reimbursed at less than the acquisition cost (CMS-1392-FC). So ridiculous is this proposition that Newsweek's Jonathan Alter weighed in with an article, "How Washington is Nixing a Cancer Cure."
We've now learned that two senators are modifying the language of the bill coming up for approval by the Senate Finance Committee tomorrow (4 Dec). However, there seems to be misinformation spreading regarding the affordability…
terrasig | December 1, 2007Today is World AIDS Day but I wish to relay the need for a different kind of help.
Terra Sigillata has just learned that HIV/AIDS researcher Dr Sonia Napravnik and her daughter Sophia were among those whose apartments were destroyed by fire Wednesday night in Carrboro, NC. Sonia is a research assistant professor in the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Wednesday night Sonia Napravnik's apartment building caught on fire. Her
unit (3rd floor) was destroyed. It is presently unclear how much of her stuff will be retrievable but we are…
terrasig | November 30, 2007There's a great interview up at the website of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center's BT Catalyst with Dr Chris Brodie, associate editor of American Scientist magazine, a publication of the Sigma Xi scientific research society. Chris recently helped to organize a new organization called Science Communicators of North Carolina (SCONC) and speaks with terrific clarity on the changing world for scientists wishing to be involved in public discourse:
In the culture of academic science, the first priority is to secure grants, followed by publishing scientific papers, teaching, administration…
terrasig | November 30, 2007My colleague and guest wine blogger, Erleichda, wrote previously on his birthday trip to New Zealand's wine destinations. I accidentally posted his writings in reverse, with his description of wines of the Marlborough district here. Below was intended to be the first of the two columns.
Another Wine Escapade: New Zealand's Central Otago Region
by Erleichda
Having reached another even decade of aging, I decided to celebrate by visiting a destination I had wanted to experience, New Zealand (NZ). (I could have chosen Tahiti, but I'm saving that one for when the prospect of climbing onto…
terrasig | November 28, 2007...and we thank you.
If you look down yonder left, you'll see that my SiteMeter counter passed 100,000 visits earlier today.
To be precise, a visitor from the University of Edinburgh's Moray House Institute of Education dialed into ScienceBlogs' 'Last 24 Hours' channel at 2037 GMT and clicked on my post about yesterday's death of Dr Robert Cade, the renal physiologist who formulated Gatorade. (So that readers don't get nervous, SiteMeter doesn't track in any greater detail than that.).
So, a great many thanks to my Scottish reader for being #100,000. If I knew who you were and could be…
terrasig | November 28, 2007This question, posed in 1965 by a Gator football coach to University of Florida renal physiologist J. Robert Cade, MD, PhD, led to the development of Gatorade and the tremendously successful sports drink industry.
Yesterday, the revered Dr Cade went to that Gatorade cooler in the sky, at age 80.
What a remarkable renal physiology study back in the 1960s: Cade recognized that football players in "The Swamp," Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, were so dehydrated that they could not make urine.
But he and his colleagues took this one step further.
They collected sweat from football players to…
terrasig | November 27, 2007Compounds in grapefruit juice inhibits an enzyme required for metabolism of nearly half of prescription drugs on the market. If you inhibit drug metabolism, would that allow you to take a lower (and cheaper) dose of one of those drugs, especially an expensive drug?
That is the proposition of a company called Bioavailability Systems, featured in today's Wall Street Journal and alluded to on the WSJ Health Blog (yes, I cite the WSJ very often but only because they have some of the best medical and health reporting on topics well ahead of the MSM curve).
The intestines and the liver contain…
terrasig | November 25, 2007We discussed in a post the other day about the use of a class of anti-glaucoma drugs for cosmetic purposes to increase the number and thickness of eyelashes.
Well, we can always count on The Onion to provide us with levity and witty parody on current events.
I'm not sure what is more difficult: interpreting the science or consistently coming up with satire. Hats off to Onion writers.
While you're at the website for The Onion, see also Orac's post about their take on acupuncture.
terrasig | November 25, 2007As I sat to write a post this morning, I became more engaged in a story in the New York Times magazine by Dr Daniel Carlat entitled, "Dr. Drug Rep." Joseph of Corpus Callosum recently commented here about being solicited to recommend fellow physicians in the local area and nationally who he perceived as "thought leaders" in his specialty.
Carlat was such a physician who was cultivated by Wyeth to discuss their antidepressant, Effexor XR, to fellow physicians at conferences and in doctors' offices. His piece in the NYT magazine chronicles his development by Wyeth as a drug spokesperson and…
terrasig | November 23, 2007I'm a little late today with The Friday Fermentable. I wanted to be able to report back from a local beer tasting event called Black Friday Beer Fest. In deference to today's major shopping day in the US (named Black Friday to denote that many businesses come out of the "red" due to the brisk sales the day after Thanksgiving), NC's Pop The Cap organization conceived a tasting of dark beers (local, national, and even Polish) to welcome in the holiday season and provide an alternative to hunting for parking spaces at the local mall (Tagline above: "We'd Rather Drink Beer.").
Attendees were…
terrasig | November 22, 2007For readers not in the US, today is Thanksgiving Day. Our friends to the north celebrated their harvest festival last month.
I'll be giving thanks today to my local Honeybaked Ham® franchise for making our little stay-at-home celebration that much easier.
As I also enjoy my British-crafted Samuel Smith Imperial Stout, I'll also be giving thanks that my little blog hobby is something that is valued by you folks around the world.
There are a great many challenges on this planet and there is much suffering among our people. We should all find something to be thankful for today.
Wherever you…
terrasig | November 21, 2007I was looking through more links tonight after posting earlier on the Polk County school board's intention to introduce intelligent design into the science curriculum.
I saw this post, An Open Letter to the Polk County, Florida School Board from The Austringer, Dr Wesley Elsberry. Turns out that Elsberry is a product of [a] public schools [and two parochial schools] in Lakeland, the largest city in Polk Country.
From his compelling open letter:
I was born in Lakeland, Florida, and lived for eighteen years there. My parents still live there. I still care about what happens in my home town.
To…