palmd | January 3, 2010I woke up way too early---my damned sinuses. After a good lavage I managed to fall back asleep until a little warm body curled up next to me and used one of its appendages to turn on the TV. That's when I realized how hungry I was. I left the kiddo to her shows and poked around the kitchen.
I ran out of waffle mix, so I googled up a recipe and whipped up some batter. Then I put up my coffee. As a bonus, I found a pound of bacon in the fridge, so I put up some of that as well.
A short time later, the house smelled like breakfast. While MrsPal slept in, PalKid and I enjoyed a breakfast of…
palmd | January 2, 2010Being a physician and a father, I keep an eye out for news about childhood vaccinations. I've always been concerned about local statutes that allow kids to be admitted to school unvaccinated, especially when all that is required is an affirmation or a letter from a doctor or religious figure. This not only endangers these individual children but also others. As the rates of vaccination drop vaccine-preventable diseases regain a foothold. Children and adults who are either ineligible for vaccination or in whom vaccination was not completely effective can become ill. Parents can, of course…
palmd | January 1, 2010Or if he does, he's even a worse person than I'd realized. After suffering chest pain in Hawaii he was evaluated in a hospital. When discharged today, he held a briefing in which he praised the U.S. health care system as being the best in the world and remarked that he sees nothing wrong with it at all. He also stated that he received no special treatment. (I don't have links yet, as it was just on TV.)
Such unmitigated arrogance. Such hateful, uncompassionate ignorance. Chest pain can be a useful example of how we approach health care in the U.S., so let's dig and see how spectacularly…
palmd | December 31, 2009New Year's Eve. This is a profoundly arbitrary designation---the end of the year, end of the decade---really, there is nothing about December 31st that's any different than any other day. But for historical reasons, this is the secular new year. Looking back on the last 12 or 13 months I can say that I'm happy we're marking a new year and hoping the next year is better.
Even though the New Year holiday takes place at an arbitrary time, as human beings, we look to it as a chance to improve, to change, to have hope.
My wish for the new year is better health for my family and friends.
What…
palmd | December 30, 2009The fake doctors at HuffPo are at it again. This time, Patricia Fitzgerald is writing about the "Top 10 Healing Foods of the Decade." The article has just enough correct information in it to be exceptionally wrong.
One of the more ironic aspects to this is her quoting Michael Pollan. I have problems with some of Pollan's ideas, but I like his little saying, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." When he first wrote this in a New York Times piece, he was arguing against "nutritionism", the idea that you can break foods down into their components and then consume the component…
palmd | December 30, 2009Dr. Sherri Tenpenny is reportedly a doctor, although according to her website, she no longer practices medicine in any recognizable way. Perhaps that's why she utters completely idiotic statements such as this one pointed out to me by Brother Orac:
Study these numbers. We've had SARS, Bird flu and Swine flu. On average, approx. 190 children/year die from the flu. Considering there are about 62M kids under the 14 years of age in the US, this is NOT "statistically signficant" and should not even make the radar screen. See how they manipulate parents into vaccinations?
Next year, PLEASE do not…
palmd | December 28, 2009I've never understood food fads. Michael Pollan's maxim, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants," has always seemed like reasonable, practical advice. Maybe it's a disease of plenty---we have so much food, we have to find new ways to conceptualize it. Unless you live in an inner city, you can go to any market and find large quantities of foodstuffs, both healthy and unhealthy. Food in this country is cheap and plentiful and, for the most part, safe. Self-"regulated" industrialized production has contributed to problems with bacterial contamination of meats and produce, but food- and…
palmd | December 25, 2009Merry Christmas to my readers who celebrate this one. For those of you who do, you may sometimes wonder what those of us who don't are doing today. Well, I find that Christmas is a great time to work at the hospital. It gives my Christian colleagues a break. Here in Michigan Jewish groups have traditionally worked various missions and shelters to give Christian charity workers a break. This year local Muslims will be joining Jews to help out. Detroit has large and strong Muslim and Jewish communities, and anything that brings them together is generally a very good thing. Conflicts…
palmd | December 25, 2009Do you know how many people have chlamydia? Syphilis? No?
Me either. But it's a lot. Depending on the group evaluated, chlamydia rates among young women range from 7-15%. And with STDs, there is always at least one other victim.
The holidays tend to be a time of seeing old friends and drinking with them. I see a lot of STDs after the holidays.
Both men and women can carry STDs without symptoms, but in women, these infections can ravage the reproductive organs leading to ectopic pregnancies, infertility, and other long-term health problems.
If infertility doesn't sound so bad, you…
palmd | December 23, 2009Wouldn't it be cool if after we died we didn't...die? Just like in the fairy tales, we could go to some place where we play harps on clouds and eat marshmallows for breakfast; we could play with our dead dogs, and somehow manage to live in harmony with all of our dead lovers. Unless we go to a place of flames and unending agony. Or maybe we become squid-like creatures in the oceans of Titan--all are equally (un)likely.
Except to those so mired in thanatophobia and fantasy that they can no longer reason properly. It's not like this is a new problem, but my eyes were bleeding after…
palmd | December 23, 2009Human beings are an interesting mix of fragility and hardiness, and we have a tendency to overestimate both traits. We also tend to be somewhat over-confident in our own ability to make sense of patterns. This combination of traits often blinds us to the real magnitude of risks we encounter every day---we're often scared of airplanes, but very few people have cigarette phobias. And when we really do get sick, in our desperation our faults often become magnified. As patients we often cast blindly for hope; as doctors we look to give hope, but the hope we give must be qualified by reality…
palmd | December 21, 2009Multiple sclerosis (MS) is fascinating illness that can range from mild annoyance to debilitating nightmare. The frightening nature and unclear cause of the disease makes it a magnet for questionable medical therapies (i.e. quackery). A piece published last week in (surprise!) the Huffington Post helps fuel the fires of suspicion and paranoia while failing to shed any light on the future of MS research.
Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the nervous system. Its victims develop symptoms based on what part of the nervous system is affected. For example, if MS attacks the optic nerve, a…
palmd | December 17, 2009I was listening to Tell Me More yesterday and was drawn into the story.
The host interviewed Michael Crawford, a DC-based activist. He attempted to debunk the idea that black communities are strongly anti-gay marriage. They played a clip of former DC mayor Marion Barry explaining how he personally might approve of gay marriage but he felt he had to represent his constituents by voting against it. Crawford called him out on a couple of scores. First, Crawford pointed out that Barry gave no polling data. Then he pointed out that he has the support of a large coalition of clergy,…
palmd | December 16, 2009C'mon, Times, it's not like you're some kind of penny-ante operation. You've got at least modest resources, you know like the internet and telephones to call up experts. Right?
I don't know whether it's a lack of resources, laziness, or ignorance that allows pieces like this one into the paper, but it doesn't change the craptastic nature of the piece.
The byline says:
Anahad O'Connor, who writes the Really? column for The New York Times, explores the claims and the science behind various alternative remedies that you may want to consider for your family medicine cabinet.
I also "explore…
palmd | December 16, 2009Oral Robers, a man infamous for his televangelism and faith healing, died yesterday. The coverage of his life helps remind me why I'm a skeptic. There are many wonderful skeptical bloggers out there---I'm not one of them. Sure, I aim a skeptical pen at improbable medical claims, but my posts aren't dripping with skepticism in the same way some of my favorite blogs are. But from time to time, it's good to remember why skepticism is a very good way to approach the world.
Oral Roberts was a scam artist. He built an evangelical empire on the wallets of his victims. He famously told his…
palmd | December 15, 2009One of my favorite publications is the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). It's put out weekly by the CDC and allows for rapid communication of emerging or interesting health trends. This week the CDC is reporting an extraordinary death rate from influenza in American Indians/Native Alaskans (AI/NA). Collecting data like this presents several challenges, including under-reporting of AI/NA ethnicity and under-reporting of H1N1 as a cause of death, which makes the data even more sobering.
The death rate from H1N1 among AI/NA is 3.7 per 100,000 population, compared with 0.9 per…
palmd | December 14, 2009After reading the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Physician's idiotic flu handout I decided to see what our American naturopaths had to say about flu. It's not good. The most effective way to prevent influenza is through vaccination. Good hand hygiene probably helps. Nothing else really does, but that has never stopped quacks from making wildly bogus claims.
The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians has a page on "preparing for flu season naturally" which of course fails to mention the most effective prophylactic treatment, presumably because it's "unnatural". I'm not…
palmd | December 14, 2009Over at Skeptic North there has been an ongoing discussion about naturopathy. Since it looks like naturopaths are going to get prescribing privileges in Ontario, it's reasonable to subject their practice to some pretty intense scrutiny. One naturopath left some interesting comments about treatment of heart disease, citing relevant literature, but failed to show an actual understanding of the clinical realities of treating heart disease. This is not surprising given that naturopaths aren't required to do residencies like real doctors are.
Another comment referenced the Canadian…
palmd | December 11, 2009I guess I hadn't realized how attached people are to their holiday greetings. There are a number of comments that deserve some examination here, at least if you have any interest in living comfortably in a multi-cultural society. Since it's my blog, I get to yank the comments out of context and focus on some misconceptions.
"Christmas has become as much a cultural holiday as a religious one."
That is an opinion that may be shared by many majoritarians. But for many Jews for example, there will never be anything secular about Christmas. Sure, there are Jews who get Christmas trees and…
palmd | December 11, 2009One of the blogosphere's best known skeptics hit a milestone today. Orac at Respectful Insolence has now been fighting ignorance for five years. That's like, oh, about 30 in blog years. Why don't you go over there and wish him a happy blogiversary. He deserves it. Folks like Orac who publicly call out quacks get a lot of online and real-life harassment. It's nice to get well-wishers coming by once in a while.