Category: Basic Science
The hijacking of evidence-based medicine
A hero of the blog, John Ioannidis, worries that evidence-based medicine has been hijacked, and when Ioannidis says something we at SBM listen. But has EBM been "hijacked"?
The Essential Role of Regulation In Human Health and In Ecology: The Serengeti Rules
The doubling time for E.coli bacteria is 20 minutes. With uncontrolled growth, it would take a mere two days for the weight of bacteria to equal the weight of the Earth. What rules determine the actual numbers of bacteria? Why is the world green; why don’t insects eat all the leaves? How does the body maintain homeostasis? What determines the uncontrolled growth...
Zika virus, microcephaly, and calls to bring back DDT (Rachel Carson revisionism edition)
In response to the Zika virus threat, predictably the same group of anti-environmentalists are urging that we bring back DDT and "Spray, baby, spray!" To make their questionable case, they overstate the benefits of DDT, downplay its risks, and engage in some major historical revisionism regarding the legacy of Rachel Carson.
When antivaccine pseudoscience isn’t enough, Bill Maher fawns over Charlie Sheen’s HIV quack
I know I must be getting older because of Friday nights. After a long, hard week (and, during grant season, in anticipation of a long, hard weekend of grant writing), it’s not infrequent that my wife and I order pizza, plant ourselves in front of the TV, and end up asleep before 10 or 11 PM. Usually, a few hours later, between...
Is “harnessing the power of placebo” worthwhile to treat anything?
We frequently write about placebo effects here on Science-Based Medicine. The reason is simple. They are an important topic in medicine and, at least as importantly, understanding placebo effects is critical to understanding the exaggerated claims of advocates of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), now more frequently called “integrative medicine” (i.e., integrating pseudoscience with science). Over the years, I (and, of course,...
Lyme Testing
I hate those oh hell moments. I was up way too late last night, but who can pass up the opportunity to see Patti Smith playing Horses (and more) for the 40th anniversary of the album. Only 44? Behind the Eagles? No way. I would nudge it up a few more spaces. Hard to believe I was 18 when that album came...
Is scientific peer review a “sacred cow” ready to be slaughtered?
I’ve frequently noted that one of the things most detested by quacks and promoters of pseudoscience is peer review. Creationists hate peer review. HIV/AIDS denialists hate it. Anti-vaccine cranks like those at Age of Autism hate it. Indeed, as a friend of mine, Mark Hoofnagle, pointed out several years ago, pseudoscientists and cranks of all stripes hate it. There’s a reason for...
Of Mice and Men…and Coconut Oil
Editor’s note: This post is a collaborative effort between Grant Ritchey, a Science-Based Medicine semi-regular, and Stephanie Tornberg-Belanger, a co-author of the research paper discussed below and who brought the study to Grant’s attention. We are pleased to welcome Stephanie as a guest contributor to SBM. In his last SBM post, Grant reported on a systematic review of the literature that undermined...
“Electromagnetic hypersensitivity” and “wifi allergies”: Bogus diagnoses with tragic real world consequences
"Electromagnetic hypersensitivity" and "wifi allergies" are two names given to a nonexistent medical condition in low energy electromagnetic fields like wifi are blamed for a variety of health conditions. This is a story in which the parents' insistence that their teenage daughter, who had posted threats to commit suicide on social media, had this condition appears to have interfered with seeking mental...
Authority versus science on integrative medicine
David Katz doesn’t much like us here at Science-Based Medicine. In fairness, I can’t say that I much blame him. We have been very critical of his writings and talks over the years, dating back as far as Steve Novella’s deconstruction of one of Dr. Katz’s more infamous statements about using a “more fluid concept of evidence” to Kimball Atwood’s characterization of...