The Limits of Neuroplasticity
I am daily annoyed by overhyped headlines reporting medical and other science news. I think news outlets and the public would be better served if they fired all their headline writers and let the authors and editors craft headlines that actually reflect the story. Of course, often the story is overhyped as well, so this would not be a panacea to annoying...
Reverse Ageing Hype
There are a number of annoying clichés of science reporting, prime among them being the need to make a connection from any research to a specific application. It must be deeply embedded in the journalism culture, or written in a handbook somewhere. In medicine this means that any study that involves viruses or the immune system’s ability to fight off infection might...
An Apple a Day
We (the authors and editors) at SBM get accused of many nefarious things. Because we deliberately engage with the public over controversial medical questions, we expect nothing less. It goes with the territory. In fact, if there were a lack of critical pushback we would worry that we were not doing our job. Still, it is disconcerting to see the frequently-repeated ideological...
Measles Spike in US
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced in a recent press release the data for 2013 so far shows 175 confirmed cases of measles in the US. This is about three times the usual rate of 60 per year since endemic measles was eradicated in the US, and is the most in the last decade other than 2011, which saw 222 cases....
The Seralini GMO Study – Retraction and Response to Critics
Elsevier has announced that they are retracting the infamous Seralini study which claimed to show that GMO corn causes cancer in laboratory rats. The retraction comes one year after the paper was published, and seems to be a response to the avalanche of criticism the study has faced. This retraction is to the anti-GMO world what the retraction of the infamous Wakefield...
The FDA and Personalized Genetic Testing
The company 23andMe provides personal genetic testing from a convenient home saliva sample kit. Their home page indicates that their $99 genetic screening will provide reports on 240+ health conditions in addition to giving you information on your genetic lineage. The benefits, they claim, are that you will learn about your carrier status and therefore the risk of passing on genetic diseases to your...
Detecting Consciousness in the Vegetative
People in a vegetative state, usually as a result of brain trauma or anoxia (lack of oxygen) by definition have no signs of conscious awareness or activity. The definition, therefore, is based largely on the absence of evidence for consciousness. Of course, arguments based upon the absence of evidence are only as compelling as the degree to which evidence has been properly...
Lorenzo’s Oil: Hollywood versus science
Lorenzo Odone, son of Italian economist Augusto Odone, was diagnosed at age 5 with a horrific genetic disease, X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD), which is usually a death sentence by age 10 or so. As portrayed in the movie Lorenzo's Oil, the story of the Odones is a typical Hollywood cliche of a plucky family badgering scientists, finding a "brave maverick scientist" to synthesize...
The CAM Worldview
Harriet has written some excellent recent posts about how to talk to CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) proponents, and answers to common CAM fallacies. I have written about this myself numerous times – we deal with the same logically-challenged claims so often that it’s useful to publish standard responses. In fact, I often wonder about the seeming uniformity of poor arguments put...