palmd | October 11, 2009I was going to try to sleep in this morning but my kid couldn't find her femur---long story. So I figured I might as well brew up a pot of Pal's Special, put up some Irish steel cut oatmeal, and review this weeks insanity.
This has been a rough week for the public's health education. The flu pandemic is still on the rise, and if trends continue, we will hit a record number of cases quite soon. Currently the best primer on influenza is Joe Albietz's, which I encourage you to read. But rumors about the flu are spreading nearly as fast as the virus, and we need a nearly real-time response to…
palmd | October 9, 2009I am a patriot. This word means different things to different people, but to me it means pride in my nation, one founded by brilliant thinkers and built on the acknowledgment of basic human rights. It does not mean that I agree with everything my country does or with all of my fellow citizens. It means that I believe in our basic values enough to love this country. Patriotism also recognizes a shared fate. There can be no patriotism unless there is a shared identity and a shared fate. Because we share this space, these values, what happens to you very much matters to me. To maintain…
palmd | October 9, 2009My readers have just funded another project! So what's next? Are Michigan's children all set?
No, not quite. We've funded some great projects, helping out kids with hearing impairments, giving inner city girls a view into a remarkable future, but there's more work to do. I found another project that looks important. The kids in this school can't play outside (!) and need some indoor sports equipment to keep healthy, play, and fight obesity. How 'bout we do this? They need $501.00 to be fully funded (apparently indoor soccer balls are rather expensive).
palmd | October 9, 2009Alternative medicine boosters promote bad health practices that hurt real people---that's been a theme in my writing for nearly three years. It's bad enough that they sell people fake cures and encourage them to avoid real medical care, but apparently, that's not enough anymore. It's getting to the point where they might as well line their victims up against a wall and shoot them. You see now, not satisfied with their current body count, they are suing the FDA to remove the current pandemic flu vaccine. This not only affects the members of their medical cults, but all of us.
According…
palmd | October 8, 2009I try not to get involved over at PZ's place, but his post today just sucked me right in. To catch you up, in a case before the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia argued that a cross can actually be a secular symbol used to honor the dead.
"I assume it [the cross] is erected in honor of all of the war dead. The cross is the most common symbol of ... of ... of the resting place of the dead."
Um, Tony? My cemetery doesn't have a single cross. In fact, none of my relatives is buried at a cemetery with crosses in it. What's up with that?
I must be some sort of freak. If these cross things are…
palmd | October 8, 2009You guys have been great. Really. So I gave you a break from the nudging. But it's time to pick another project to fund, and this one is terrific. Go read about it.
I'm not sure what I can offer as a challenge---my blogging check is already being donated thanks to your generosity in the last challenge. But let's see if we can get this one funded by tomorrow afternoon.
palmd | October 8, 2009Why am I politically liberal? Is it because liberal ideals conform to my own sense of morals about how a just society should function? According to some, that idea is laughably wrong. Let me share with you an exchange from facebook:
Me: The michigan house passed the doctor tax. Time to write and call your state senator to remind them that taxing the person providing the service you need is really freakin' stupid.
Conservative friend: You've gotta LOVE those Democrats in Lansing...just keep taxing and spending and taxing and spending....If this fucking thing passes the senate and governor…
palmd | October 7, 2009One of my bibles of clinical medicine is Fitzpatrick's Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology. It's basically a field guide to skin, with hundreds of pictures matched up with brief summaries. The introduction states, "We have endeavored to include information relevant to gender dermatology and a large number of images showing skin disease in different ethnic populations." The book devotes a section on each disease to racial differences. For example, the section on superficial spreading melanoma (p. 312) states that "white-skinned persons overwelmingly predominate. Only 2% [of…
palmd | October 7, 2009Even with cable, there isn't much on TV before six in the morning. On the stationary bike today I was flipping through the channels and I just had to watch the infomercial for No Evil Oil. According to the testimonials, this stuff not only keeps out the Devil, but gets rid of shingles and makes you rich. The smiling preacher with the mullet will send it to you for free (but there are plenty of donation buttons).
You may be asking yourself, "How dumb/desperate/gullible do you have to be to use the No Evil Oil?" Even my most credulous readers would agree that this stuff is snake oil.…
palmd | October 7, 2009The kiddo started kindergarten this year. She went from complete freedom to getting up at dawn five mornings a week for a seven hour school day. It is my fortunate task on four of those mornings to help her on her way. Like many of the Pal clan, she is independent of thought, and rather stubborn; once she's out of sorts, well, to paraphrase Colin Powell, you broke it, you buy it.
So I've developed a very careful morning routine, designed to ease us into our day as painlessly as possible. I'm a morning person, so I get up and take care of my ablutions before I get her up. Then I walk into…
palmd | October 7, 2009I weighed in today at 202#. I'm quite happy about that, given certain dietary indiscretions. I'm finding that as my diet improves overall, these indiscretions don't have quite the negative impact I might expect.
As for exercise, well, a wind storm kept me up last night so I got up and rode the stationary bike. I guess I can keep doing that.
Oh, and I experimented in the kitchen last night. I picked up some fresh fish and veggies to experiment with some ideas. I fried up a couple of chopped up slices of bacon and tossed in the beet greens with some salt, pepper, hot sauce, and a pinch…
palmd | October 6, 2009We reached our goal for today! We fully funded a project for kids with hearing impairments. Because you did this before the 7th inning stretch, my next blog check is going to DonorsChoose (hopefully to this project, but if not, to my "most needy" list). Of course, now I have to come up with a way to top that for the next three weeks.
palmd | October 6, 2009OK, folks, we've almost fully funded another project, thanks to your generosity. There's only $280 left to fully fund this worthy project. I'm extending my deadline. If you can do it before the 7th inning stretch of the Tiger's game, I'll donate my blog check from this month. Let's do it!
(Since I'm only getting one blogging check, I have no idea how I'm getting you to keep giving for the rest of the month...)
palmd | October 6, 2009How cool is this? If you, my readers, can fully fund this cause by 5pm EDT, I'll donate my next blogging check to DonorsChoose. There's about $290 left to go, so it shouldn't be that hard. C'mon, folks...even if you can give one or two bucks, it adds up fast, and encourages others to give.
Go for it!
palmd | October 6, 2009You guys have been fantastic. You've helped fully fund several programs now. Donations have reflected my readership---individual donations have ranged from a few dollars to a few hundreds of dollars. Every single dollar helps, and no contribution is too small (but homeopathic giving is discouraged). So why don't you click over and consider sending a couple of bucks to a cool project? I'm especially fond of this one; only $291.00 left to fully fund language aids for deaf kids.
How 'bout a challenge? Let's try to fund this one project today. We have the rest of the month to finish the…
palmd | October 5, 2009Last spring, when the flu season is usually winding down, we had a "second flu season" brought to us by the novel H1N1 ("swine") flu. After school let out for the summer, the numbers declined, but not to the usual low summer rate. Now, as fall begins, flu is picking up again---fast. Pandemic swine flu is hitting our naive population fiercely.
From the CDC Red is this year
This graph clearly illustrates the high baseline during what would normally not be flu season, and the early peak which we are (hopefully) approaching.
This correlates with my own clinical experience. It's gonna be a…
palmd | October 5, 2009From time to time, my wife or one of our friends will forward one of the latest health rumors going through the email lists in our community. The usual email list is the one that goes out to moms of young kids living in our ethnic/geographic community. Usually I shrug it off, but every once in a while, my wife and I get fed up and try to spread the truth.
The latest was sent by a friend and colleague who took one look at it and thought, "I bet this'll piss off Pal." She was right. The email contained a link to a notorious anti-vaccination site, and to one post in particular that repeats…
palmd | October 5, 2009You guys are fantastic. You've fully funded another project. This one gets kids in a tough neighborhood focused on the outdoors in a positive way, exploring their environment. What a great project. I feel proud to have you as readers, and I'm even more proud I married a teacher. Teachers are working their butts off to get the basic needs of their students funded, and even little donations from others help them get there. These students are lucky to have teachers who care enough to go the extra million miles.
Addendum
Wow! You guys just finished funding another project, this one for…
palmd | October 4, 2009One of the projects on our list reached it's "fully funded" status! Now, donors from other challenges pretty much kicked our asses, but one of our readers helped, and we can be proud.
But there are more projects to go, all of which help out Michigan classrooms that are desperate. I'm not going to pretend that we'll get all nine remaining projects on my list fully funded, but we can at least make a significant dent. Even small donations help, and they are, of course, tax deductible. If you can't give, spreading the word to others via twitter, email, and facebook is just as good---really.
palmd | October 4, 2009The flu pandemic of 1918 was horrific. Millions of people died (by some estimates 4% of the world population), and the medical establishment worked feverishly to find a cause and a treatment. There were many dead-ends in the search for the cause of the flu. One of the most enduring errors was the attribution of the pandemic to a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae. It turned out that the flu was actually caused by a virus rather than a bacterium, but H. flu is still an important discovery. The fight against influenza was in many ways successful (although too late for the 1918…