Pertussis Epidemic 2010
Bordetella pertussis is the bacterium that causes whooping cough – the main clinical feature of which is a severe lingering cough that can last for weeks or even months. Right now we are in the midst of an epidemic of pertussis cropping up in pockets throughout the US, most notable California. According to the CDC: During January 1– June 30, 2010, a...
Venous Insufficiency in Multiple Sclerosis
There is an interesting controversy raging in the multiple sclerosis (MS) world that reflects many of the issues we discuss at science-based medicine. Dr. Paolo Zamboni, and Italian vascular surgeon, has now published a series of studies claiming that patients with clinically defined MS have various patterns of chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI). Further Dr. Zamboni believes CCSVI is a major cause...
Acupuncture Pseudoscience in the New England Journal of Medicine
Here is the conclusion quoted from a recent New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) review article on acupuncture for back pain: As noted above, the most recent wellpowered clinical trials of acupuncture for chronic low back pain showed that sham acupuncture was as effective as real acupuncture. The simplest explanation of such findings is that the specific therapeutic effects of acupuncture, if...
Meat and Weight Contol
A new study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is reporting an association with eating meat and weight gain. This is a fairly robust epidemiological study, but at the same time is a good example of how such information is poorly reported in the media, leading to public confusion. The data is taken from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer...
Taking On Homeopathy in Germany
Homeopathy is having a bad year. From a scientific point of view, it has had a couple of bad centuries. The progress of our scientific understanding of biology, chemistry, and physics has failed to confirm any of the core beliefs of homeopathy. Like does not cure like (this is a form of superstition known as sympathetic magic, with no basis in science)....
Terrible Anti-Vaccine Study, Terrible Reporting
One of my goals in writing for this blog is to educate the general public about how to evaluate a scientific study, specifically medical studies. New studies are being reported in the press all the time, and the analysis provided by your average journalist leaves much to be desired. Generally, they fail to put the study into context, often get the bottom...
Reliability of Health Information on the Web
Last week at TAM8 some SBM colleagues (David Gorski, Kimball Atwood, Harriet Hall, Rachel Dunlop) and I gave two workshops on how to find reliable health information on the web. As part of my research for this talk I came across a recent and interesting study that I would like to expand upon further – Quality and Content of Internet-Based Information for...
Acupuncture and Modern Bloodletting
Last year Ben Kavoussi published an interesting article on SBM called “Astrology with Needles” in which he purported a historical connection between acupuncture and bloodletting. I had previously thought that bloodletting was a uniquely Western cultural invention – part of Galenic medicine involving the balancing of the four humors, one of which being blood. (In the West bloodletting faded away with the...
Personalized Medicine Bait and Switch
Mark Hyman, a proponent of so-called “functional medicine” promoting himself over at the Huffington Post (an online news source that essentially allows dubious medical infomercials to pass as news) has posted a particularly egregious article on personalized medicine for dementia. In the article Hyman distorts the modern practice of medicine, the current state of genetic science, and the very notion of “disease.”...
Cracking Down on Stem Cell Tourism
The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) is a professional organization of stem cell researchers. I am happy to see that they see it as their responsibility to respond to the growth of dubious stem cell clinics offering unproven treatments to desperate patients. In a recently published handbook for patients, they write: The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) is...