Category: Epidemiology

A Disconnect between cell phone fears and science

Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family by Devra Davis, PhD is touted as a book about the issue of cell phones and health. It is instead a tract that conspiracy theorists will love that sheds no objective light on the often confusing scientific data in this area....

/ December 31, 2010

CAM Use by Brain Tumor Patients

A recent article in the journal Neurology reports the results of an observational study regarding the use of so-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by patients with an incurable brain glioma. They found that 40% of patients sought some type of CAM treatment. These results are in line with prior surveys, but require closer inspection. The study defined CAM as: Complementary therapy...

/ December 29, 2010

Freeways, autism, and correlation versus causation

I have a love-hate relationship with epidemiology. On the one hand, I love how epidemiology can look for correlations in huge sample sizes, sample sizes far larger than any that we could ever have access to in clinical trials, randomized or other. I love the ability of epidemiology to generate hypotheses that can be tested in the laboratory and then later in...

/ December 20, 2010