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Negative Health Effects of Vaping
When vaping was first introduced it was marketed mainly as a safer alternative to smoking and as a potential smoking cessation method. But increasingly people who have never smoked are vaping, and now the concern is that vaping is more of a pathway into smoking than one out of it. According to the CDC, about 30% of all adults who vape have...
NYT Article on Rapid Prompting Method
This is one of those stories that will not go away, and a recent NYT article is fresh evidence of that. The title is: An Autism Breakthrough, or an Illusion? The Fight Over Assisted Spelling.” I always approach such articles cautiously, bracing myself for the cringing experience of reading a non-expert butcher such topics in depressingly predictable ways. This article was not...
WHO And The Death of Evidence-Based Medicine
I have long been critical of the World Health Organization’s promotion of dubious treatment methods under the banner of “traditional medicine”. It now has a global strategy to promote what is calls “traditional, complementary and integrative medicine” (TCIM). In my opinion (shared by at least some others) the document is a master class in how to promote medical pseudoscience with the language...
Using Phone Apps to Track Symptoms
It is easy to forget how much of an impact the smartphone has had on our daily lives and our society. About 91% of Americans own a smartphone, which means most of us are walking around with a device in our pockets that is a computer, communicator, camera, GPS locator and has access to virtually the world’s store of human knowledge. The...
Stem Cell Therapy for Autism
If you are a parent of a young child with autism (especially level 2 or 3, requiring significant support), the promise of a cure or even an effective treatment is irresistible. This is exactly why there needs to be science-based regulatory standards – to protect vulnerable patients and their loved-ones. RFK Jr., however, wants to weaken these protections – even removing from...
The Baloney Protection Act
We have had to endure a great deal of interference from government in the conduct of institutions that should be governed by science and evidence. I’m sorry to report – here is one more. Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R- AL) have recently introduced a bill that would limit the FDA’s ability to regulate the blatant pseudoscience of homeopathy. This...
In Animal Study, Nanobots Repair Spinal Cords
For my entire career as a neurologist the ability to repair an injured spinal cord has been one of the holy grails. There has always been promising new research that definitely increases our knowledge but doesn’t lead to an effective treatment. This is not for lack of trying – I also remember the period when Christopher Reeve was a tireless promoter of...
Injectable Peptides – The New Snake Oil
We are going backwards. Hopefully this will be temporary trend, but it has been consistent for the past few decades. Prior to the FDA we had the “wild west” of patent medicines – anyone could put anything in a bottle and sell it with any claims. It was up to the average person to decide if a product was safe or effective....
NYT Epic Fail on Acupuncture
This makes the third time in just two weeks that a major mainstream or scientific outlet published credible nonsense about acupuncture, but I had to cover it after dozens of people e-mailed me about this recent article in the New York Times Magazine. It is ostensibly about the interstitium, but pivots to using this recent discovery to retcon an alleged explanation for how...
MAHA Ruins Everything – Apeel Edition
About 30-40% of all food produced is wasted and not consumed. That is a stunning figure – a third of produce goes to waste. That amount of food is grown on land area the equivalent of China, uses 45 trillion gallons of water, and produces about 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. An average American household of four spends about $3 thousand a...