Science-Based Satire: Improperly Performed Acupuncture Linked to Spontaneous Human Combustion
Experts in traditional Chinese medicine are warning patients to avoid unlicensed acupuncture practitioners after an apparent case of spontaneous human combustion. Baton Rouge, LA-When investigators climbed from out of the smoldering debris that was the home of Hank Thomas, the looks on their faces told the gathering crowd what these hardened veterans of the Baton Rouge Fire Department couldn’t put into words....
The Overuse of Antibiotics for Viral Infections in Children
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” -H. L. Mencken As I sit in an apartment full of unpacked boxes and grumpy children, only a few days removed from driving 1,600 miles to a 3rd floor walk-up and a better life just outside of Boston, I find the task of writing a post somewhat daunting....
Human Sex Determination: Psychic Sperm and the Gambler’s Fallacy…..
Carl Sagan supposedly once said that randomness is clumpy. Those three words have become one of my favorite go-to quotes, particularly when teaching residents and medical students who are often overly impressed with improbable runs of similar diagnoses or exam findings. I love this quote because it is so simple and yet reveals so much about our experience with observing the natural...
Infant and Toddler Swimming Programs: Are They Safe and Effective?
It’s now officially summertime, but people have been hitting the pools and beaches for weeks in many parts of the nation. In fact it has been well into the 90’s for over two month here in Baton Rouge, which is what I blame for the early exit of LSU from the College World Series. Our boys just weren’t used to that cold and dry northern weather....
The Sleep Bank
The following article is entirely made up. It’s satire. I am making fun of treatment modalities which are claimed by proponents to cure everything, from real medical ailments to fictional entities like “adrenal fatigue”. I am also poking fun at the state of medical reporting these days. If the concepts discussed seem similar to actual alternative medical practice, it is because a...
Alternative Medicine and the Vulnerable Child
A concept that has been well-recognized in pediatric medicine, at least since it was first described in 1964, is that of vulnerable child syndrome (VCS). Classically VCS occurs when a currently healthy child is felt to be at increased risk for behavioral, developmental, or medical problems by a primary caregiver, usually a parent, and typically follows a serious illness. It can lead to some pretty serious behavioral...
Chiropractic and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
As a pediatrician caring for hospitalized children, I deal with fear on a daily basis. My day is saturated with it. I encounter fear in a variety of presentations, with parental fear the most obvious but probably least impactful on my management decisions. I do spend a lot of time and mental energy calming the fears of others but more managing my...
Fever Phobia
Should you be afraid of your child having a fever? It depends, but probably not.
Chiropractic “Research” on Tourette Syndrome: The Trouble with Case Reports…..
I can think of few conditions with clinical features more ideal for establishing a pattern of abuse at the hands of practitioners of so-called alternative medicine than Tourette syndrome. Tourette syndrome (TS), which first manifests itself in early childhood in the overwhelming majority of patients, is a neurological disorder with infamous motor and vocal manifestations and a troubled past. Historically the condition...