Month: March 2020
Covid-19 in Children: A New Study Out of China
Children may be less likely to develop COVID-19, but they can get it too; and it may be more severe for infants.
Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin versus COVID-19: Grift, conspiracy theories, and another bad study by Didier Raoult
On Friday, Prof. Didier Raoult posted another study of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine used against COVID-19. It is a single arm observational study of patients with mostly mild (or even asymptomatic) disease that is painfully uninformative with respect to the question of this treatment's effectiveness. That didn't stop America's Quack Dr. Oz and other grifters from touting Raoult's study, as well as a...
England’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year: Mumps and the “Wakefield Cohort”
It may not be the most worrisome virus out there these days, but England has just had its worst year of mumps infections in a decade thanks in large part to their "Wakefield cohort".
Canadian authorities warn chiropractors and naturopaths against making false COVID-19 claims
Regulators in British Columbia are investigating bogus COVID-19 preventatives and issuing public alerts warning chiropractors and naturopaths against advertising information that is not evidence-based. Other Canadian and U.S. authorities should follow suit to protect the public against pseudoscience.
Cannabinoids for Acute Pain
A systematic review of cannabinoids for acute pain shows the evidence is preliminary, and not very encouraging.
Cold Caps Combat Hair Loss from Chemotherapy
Hair loss from chemotherapy can be prevented with cold caps, but scalp hypothermia has some downsides and may not be acceptable to all patients.
Are hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin an effective treatment for COVID-19?
Saturday morning, President Trump Tweeted a claim that the combination of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine "have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine" and hoped that they be "put in use IMMEDIATELY" to treat COVID-19. His claims were based on a single clinical trial out of France. Unfortunately, although it is not implausible that...
More COVID-19 News
Some good and bad news about the Coronavirus.
Lipogen for Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)
Lipogen PMS-Free is a dietary phospholipid supplement marketed as a remedy for PMS. The evidence for its effectiveness is less than convincing.
COVID-19 update: What you need to know now that it’s officially a pandemic
On March 11, the World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 to be a pandemic. The causative virus, SARS-CoV-2 is spreading through the population. What can be done? Social distancing is the only hope of slowing down spread of the disease.