Year: 2012

Don’t call CAM “cost-effective” unless it’s actually effective

Before deciding CAM is cost-effective, it is important to determine if is just effective. That low bar has not been surmounted.

/ October 11, 2012

More HIV Nonsense in Africa

It is estimated that 5% of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV – that’s 22.5 million people. Infection rates vary wildly from country to country, with Swaziland having the highest rate at 25.9%. Gambia is below average, at 2% or 18 thousand people, but still has a serious HIV problem, and now finds themselves at the center of the...

/ October 10, 2012

Clinical Practice Guidelines: Cholesterol Tests for Children?

The American Academy of Family Physicians journal American Family Physician (AFP) has a feature called Journal Club that I’ve mentioned before.  Three physicians examine a published article, critique it, discuss whether to believe it or not, and put it into perspective. In the September 15 issue  the journal club analyzed an article that critiqued the process for developing clinical practice guidelines. It discussed...

/ October 9, 2012

The antivaccine lie that just won’t die: The claim that shaken baby syndrome is really due to “vaccine injury”

One of the vilest ideas that antivaxers promote is the claim that shaken baby syndrome is in reality a "misdiagnosis" for vaccine injury. Come down the rabbit hole with me and see just how low antivaxers will go to promote this idea and use it to try to exonerate child abusers.

/ October 8, 2012

I Never Meta Analysis I Really Like

David Gorski recently pointed out that Science Based Medicine is going on five years. Amazing. That there would be so much to write about day after day comes as a surprise to me. Somehow I vaguely thought that ‘controversies’ would be resolved. Pick a SCAM, contrast the SCAM with reality as best we understand it, and, once the SCAM was found wanting,...

/ October 5, 2012

Obamacare and CAM II: Discrimination (or not) against CAM

Supporters of science-based medicine have expressed concern over this provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare,” or the “ACA.”): SEC. 2706. NON-DISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH CARE. (a) PROVIDERS.—A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall not discriminate with respect to participation under the plan or coverage against any health care provider...

/ October 4, 2012

Patients Still Respect Evidence

A recent survey about patient attitudes and desires with regard to health care demonstrate that respect for scientific evidence is still the dominant factor in preferring treatments. (Full study) This is good news, although the numbers could be better. Researchers asked subjects what factors were important in determining which treatments they would prefer, the scientific evidence, the experience of the clinician, or...

/ October 3, 2012

Thumbthing Worth Reading

I intended to read Sam Kean’s new book The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius as Written by our Genetic Code  just for fun. I was expecting a miscellany of trivia loosely gathered around the theme of DNA. But I found something much more worthwhile that I thought merited a book review to bring it to the attention...

/ October 2, 2012

Mouse “avatars”: New predictors of response to chemotherapy?

Over the years, I’ve written a lot about “personalized medicine, mainly in the context of how the breakthroughs in genomic medicine and data pouring in from the Cancer Genome Atlas is providing the raw information necessary for developing truly personalized cancer therapy. The problem, of course, is analyzing it and figuring out how to apply it. Another problem, of course, is developing...

/ October 1, 2012

Antivaccine versus anti-GMO: Different goals, same methods

Countering ideologically motivated bad science, pseudoscience, misinformation, and lies is one of the main purposes of this blog. Specifically, we try to combat such misinformation in medicine; elsewhere Steve and I, as well as some of our other “partners in crime” combat other forms of pseudoscience. During the nearly five year existence of this blog, we’ve covered a lot of topics in...

/ October 1, 2012