Month: November 2011

Random Flu Thoughts

Influenza is a serious disease (not an upset tummy). The vaccine is an imperfect, yet still valuable tool in preventing deaths due to influenza. Get your 'flu shot!

/ November 4, 2011

Spinal Fusion: Chiropractic and Subluxation

A spirited exchange about chiropractic arose in response to a recent post proposing “The Cure” for the legalization of implausible and unproven diagnostic methods and treatments. Some comments pointed to the implausibility of the chiropractic “subluxation” and the lack of robust evidence of efficacy/effectiveness for spinal manipulation, as well as the difficulty of understanding what exactly “chiropractic” is, or does, that distinguishes...

/ November 3, 2011

Potential market for alternative medicine left untouched

A few days ago, I had the good fortune to share lunch and ideas with David Gorski and Kimball Atwood.  Kimball was on his way from a talk at Michigan State to one at Brigham and Women’s, one of the country’s best-known teaching hospitals.  David was planning a future talk for a group in Florida.  These guys have been thinking and writing...

/ November 2, 2011

Return of an old foe

In 2000, a panel of experts was brought together by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They came to discuss whether measles was still endemic in the United States, that is whether it still existed in the general background of US infectious diseases. They concluded that measles had been eradicated in the US, and that the occasional cases imported from...

/ November 1, 2011

Steven Fowkes (Part 2 of 2): Nutrients for Better Mental Performance

Last week, in part 1, I covered Steven Fowkes’ “cures” for Alzheimer’s and herpes. In part 2, I will cover a video where he goes further afield. It is titled “Nutrients for Better Mental Performance,” but he also discusses sleep, depression, hangovers, and a lot of other topics. Some of what he says are simple truisms: mental performance is affected by everything...

/ November 1, 2011