Shingles Vaccine (Zostavax) Confirmed Safe
Shingles (herpes zoster) is no fun. It usually begins with a couple of days of pain, then a painful rash breaks out and lasts a couple of weeks. The rash consists of blisters that eventually break open, crust over, and consolidate into an ugly plaque. It is localized to one side of the body and to a stripe of skin corresponding to...
Bioidentical Hormones
The Medical Letter recently evaluated “bioidentical” hormones and concluded There is no acceptable evidence that “bioidentical” hormones are safe or effective. Patients should be discouraged from taking them. “Bioidenticals” include progesterone, estrogens (estriol, estradiol, and estrone), and testosterone. They have mainly been promoted as a safer, more natural alternative to menopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT), but they are also claimed to increase...
The Living Matrix: A Movie Promoting Energy Medicine Beliefs
It’s boring to try to ferret out reliable health information from dry medical journals. It’s easier and more fun to watch a movie. A new movie promises to change the way you think about your health. To bring you breakthroughs that will transform your understanding of how to get well and stay well. To share the discoveries of leading researchers and health...
Brief Note: The Chiropractic Subluxation is Dead
The General Chiropractic Council, a UK-wide statutory body with regulatory powers, has just published a new position statement on the chiropractic subluxation complex: The chiropractic vertebral subluxation complex is an historical concept but it remains a theoretical model. It is not supported by any clinical research evidence that would allow claims to be made that it is the cause of disease or...
Andrew Wakefield Fights Back
Dr. Andrew Wakefield was almost single-handedly responsible for frightening the public about a possible association between autism and the MMR vaccine. His alarmist recommendations directly led to lower vaccination rates and a resurgence of measles to endemic levels in the UK. The MMR/autism interpretation of his 1998 article in The Lancet was retracted by 10 of his 12 co-authors. The article itself...
Red Meat: Is It Hazardous to Health?
Red meat consumption has been linked to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and several types of cancer (breast, colorectal, stomach, bladder, prostate, and lymphoma). There are plausible mechanisms: meat is a source of carcinogens, iron that may increase oxidative damage, and saturated fat. But correlation and plausibility are not enough to establish causation. Is red meat really dangerous? If so, how great is the...
Alcohol and Pregnancy
We know that drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause birth defects; the government-mandated warnings on alcoholic beverage labels constantly remind us of that fact. But toxicologists remind us that the poison is in the dose: what is the dose of alcohol that causes birth defects? Heavy drinking can cause fetal alcohol syndrome, but there is no evidence that light to moderate drinking...
Medicine’s Beautiful Idea
For most of human history, doctors have killed their patients more often than they have saved them. An excellent new book, Taking the Medicine: A Short History of Medicine’s Beautiful Idea, and Our Difficulty Swallowing It, by Druin Burch, MD, describes medicine’s bleak past, how better ways of thinking led to modern successes, and how failure to adopt those better ways of...
Defending Isagenix: A Case Study in Flawed Thinking
The Internet is a wonderful new medium for communicating ideas and information in a rapid and interactive way. Many articles are followed by a “comments” section. Like so many things in this imperfect world, comments are a mixed blessing. They can enhance the article by correcting errors, adding further information, and contributing useful thoughts to a productive discussion. But all too often...