terrasig | October 12, 2007Here's a quick note that might belong best in Orac's weekly feature, Your Friday Dose of Woo.
The Scientist reports today on a report released by the UK-based group of scientists called Sense About Science. The group has been challenging dietary supplement manufacturers about their scientific-sounding advertising claims by calling the companies up and questioning their "science." Their statement of intent stays away from the fact that companies are making money on these products but, instead, focuses on the two standards for science that seem to operate in our societies:
We are fed up with…
terrasig | October 12, 2007The Southland is all abuzz today following yesterday's Charlotte Observer article by Lisa Zagaroli that members of the US House Homeland Security Committee were advised to get vaccinations (for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza) before traveling to car races in Concord, NC, and Taladega, AL.
Neither NASCAR fans or local politicians were pleased with the insinuations:
Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord, took umbrage when he heard about it.
"I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and as the representative for Concord, N.C., I feel compelled…
terrasig | October 11, 2007[Aufmerksamkeit! Begrüßen Sie deutsche Freunde und Leser des Focus Wissenschafts-Community. Glückwünsche zu Profs Ertl und Grünberg auf dieser enormen Ehre!]
I'm intentionally being dramatic but an interesting discussion emerged in the comment thread of my post on the work of Germany's Gerhard Ertl being recognized with this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry. One reader had a perception that the work of an American contributor to surface chemistry was being ignored. Dr Gerald Harbison followed up on this notion at his own blog, The Right Wing Professor.
Indeed, the three scientists that…
terrasig | October 10, 2007Clean(er) car exhaust, the ability to make fertilizer from nitrogen in the air, and the promise of hydrogen fuel cells are among the practical applications of the surface, or solid state, chemistry methods elucidated by this year's winner, Prof Gerhard Ertl, of Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin. Dr Ertl was director of the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Fritz-Haber for nearly 20 years before stepping down into a professor emeritus position in 2004.
Ertl was instrumental in several advances in understanding how chemical reactions take place on a solid surface…
terrasig | October 9, 2007
The monthly Denver mag, 5280, made its way to Chez Pharmboy last week with a very familiar face staring back - and not because I've had a cardiac cath...yet!
w00t!
For our readers in the Queen City of the Plains, read more here about your favorite cardiologist.
terrasig | October 8, 2007This morning, Drs Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans, and Oliver Smithies were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of "principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells."
The technology for homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells permits specific targeting of genes for disruption or modification in the resulting animal. Known as transgenic gene "knockouts" (and more recently, "knock-ins"), the methodology has allowed the study of specific processes in normal development, adult physiology, and…
terrasig | October 7, 2007Via Clinical Cases and Images, I just learned that Mark Rabnett at the University of Manitoba has just compiled a comprehensive list of medical student bloggers.
No one source is complete, so I hope this list will be of help to the fevered mind that cannot rest until every blogging student in the health sciences has been tracked down. I see a permanent job for a few people who are willing to work for no salary while exposing themselves to resident evil, anger, fear, and cadaver fumes. As for me, if I don't wake up screaming I just may have to go back to renegotiating Nietzsche in the…
terrasig | October 6, 2007I've got to admit that I've really enjoyed reading Health Blog from the Wall Street Journal. Short, pithy, and great bites about health/pharma stories that make it into one of the best sources for news in the US (its op-ed page notwithstanding).
So, I was tickled on Friday to see Health Blog interview AggravatedDocSurg. Little did I know that the Aggravated One was a general surgeon in APB's former stomping grounds of The Centennial State.
Here was the quote that made the interview from one of his public service announcements.
We've got advertisements on TV continuously for Plavix. It's not…
terrasig | October 5, 2007Folks are probably wrapping it up in St. Augustine at this hour, but I just wanted to send out happy 91st birthday wishes to the Old Lion, Stetson Kennedy.
Anastasia Books invites the community to a birthday celebration for Stetson Kennedy during the First Friday Art Walk.
Kennedy, the 91-year-old civil rights activist, folklorist and environmentalist, authored four books on civil rights and the Florida classic "Palmetto Country," a social history of Florida's ethnic cultures and folklore in the 1930s.
(More at his MySpace site with "Stetson Kennedy" by Florida folk music patriarch, Frank…
terrasig | October 4, 2007...but a chemically-altered analog derived from feverfew appears to have anticancer activity against leukemia stem cells. Researchers at the University of Rochester reported this week in the journal, Blood, that dimethylaminoparthenolide (DMAPT) has selective action against acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
It'll be a couple days before I can get to reading the original paper. However, do not let anyone tell you that feverfew can treat cancer. From the press release, it appears that the major compound in feverfew, called parthenolide, was chemically modified to create DMAPT, thereby…
terrasig | October 4, 2007Although the dichloroacetate (DCA) horse has been beaten beyond recognition, PharmCanuck sends some interesting news from north of the border about how University of Alberta researchers have generated funds to support their clinical trial of this unpatented compound.
Our correspondent writes:
I was a stunned this morning when I read an online article on the CBC website (http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/10/04/fundraising-dca.html) revealing the source of the trial funding. Amazingly, almost 1/3 ($250K) of the $800K raised has come from the efforts of the small town of Peace River, Alberta…
terrasig | October 2, 2007As you've probably seen elsewhere on ScienceBlogs, a number of us are teaming up to raise funds for teacher projects at DonorsChoose.org. DonorsChoose is a clever fundraising model for K-12 education projects where public funds don't quite meet the needs of teachers and kids.
The idea is that teachers propose projects and "donors choose" which ones they would like to support. You can choose to donate to a number of projects or fund a single one, depending on what moves you the most. Many DonorsChoose projects are at school with a high level of poverty or in areas of the country where…
terrasig | September 30, 2007Do you remember dicholoroacetate (DCA)?
In a letter dated 24 September (PDF here), Dr Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta announced that his group had received approval from Health Canada and U of A's institutional review board to begin a Phase II clinical trial of dichloroacetate (DCA). The trial will enroll 50 patients with astrocytomas or glioblastomas, two classes of malignant brain tumors, who have either been newly diagnosed or have not responded to previous therapies. The purpose of a Phase II trial is to provide an initial assessment of drug efficacy in a small…
terrasig | September 29, 2007The company whose Movable Type (MT) software powers us at ScienceBlogs, Six Apart, is doing a great thing by supporting one of our favorite charities, DonorChoose.org.
Between now and noon Monday you can request a code that will give you $30 to donate to any DonorsChoose project you'd like. What is DonorsChoose, you ask?
Donors Choose is a brilliant non-profit organization lets you support schools and education directly and personally, by choosing projects that excite you, and then making it easy to donate to them. Every project listed on the site is a personal request from a public school…
terrasig | September 28, 2007Beer is good for you, especially at this time of year. If I had my druthers (or knew what druthers were), I would be in Munich/München for the annual Oktoberfest celebration. This two week festival (22 Sept - 10 Oct this year) hosts over six million visitors and is a celebration of the Bavarian capital and its storied culture.
But why does Oktoberfest begin in September? From the Oktoberfest blog:
The festivities began on October 12, 1810 and ended on October 17th with a horse race. In the following years, the celebrations were repeated and, later, the festival was prolonged and moved…
terrasig | September 26, 2007Posting will be light over the next week or so but there is plenty of great science blogging out there to feed your soul.
One of yesterday's more interesting posts, and pertinent to this blog, was by Mark Hoofnagle at denialism blog on the marketing of Head-On®, a homeopathic remedy whose sales are challenging external analgesic rubs that actually contain medicinal agents.
terrasig | September 24, 2007Earlier last week, we appeared as one of the featured bloggers asked to recommend their three, must-read life science blogs in The Scientist. All seven of the bloggers appearing were male; in fact, my avatar is an old German-American man who has been dead for 70 years.
The lack of female bloggers obviously generated some ire among female scibloggers and even I commented on how unusual that seemed.
Well, an editorial explanation has now been posted as an addendum to the article:
Editor note (September 24): A few life science bloggers have correctly pointed out that no female bloggers are…
terrasig | September 22, 2007Great local coverage of Anton Zuiker, organizer with Bora Zivkovic of the NC Science Blogging Conference (SBC '08) (together with Brian Russell and the real Paul Jones).
The reporter, Dan Barkin of the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer, totally nailed Anton with this quote:
The Web has evolved into a tribal Internet of passionate bloggers like Zuiker, and he has become a sort-of local brand. He's a quiet visionary. He's a low-key doer. He's a let's-get-together-and-see-where-this-goes guy. It's the Zuikers of this new, interwoven world who may play a significant role in determining how far Web…
terrasig | September 22, 2007Just one last comment on the recently passed FDA legislation. I know that Terra Sig readers must be tiring of this issue already, but this aspect was too good to pass up. I started writing this post on a lark but the topic actually has serious public health implications.
John Mack at his Pharma Marketing Blog made the clever observation that while DTC restrictions were not in the Senate bill, a provision "prohibiting the FDA from restricting the sale of turtles less than 10.2 centimeters in diameter as a pet DID make it into the bill (Title VII - Domestic Pet Turtle Market Access; Section…
terrasig | September 22, 2007The Pump Handle's Liz Borowski put up a nice post summarizing the key points of the >400-page Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (H.R. 3580).
Missing from the bill were any further restrictions on pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising - according to Liz, some drug safety advocates were calling for a complete ban on DTC ads.
Since the FDA began permitting DTC advertising in 1997, the purpose of the ads has been viewed as less about patient education for underdiagnosed diseases (the original pitch) and more about getting patients to request specific…