Category: Public Health
Don’t just stand there, do nothing! The difference between science-based medicine and quackery
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines science as: Knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation. And: Knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding. While this should distinguish science from pseudoscience, those who practice the latter often lay claim to the same definition. But one of the major differences between science and pseudoscience is that science...
Pepsi Removing Aspartame
Pepsi has announced that it will remove aspartame from its formulation of diet Pepsi products in the US this year. Apparently this is a reaction to a 5% drop in the sales of Pepsi. Seth Kaufman, vice-president of Pepsi, said “Aspartame is the number one reason consumers are dropping diet soda.” This move comes in the same week that Chipotle announced it...
Lyme: Two Worlds Compared and Contrasted
The practice of infectious disease (ID) is both easy and difficult. If you read my ID blog on Medscape you are aware of my trials and tribulations in diagnosing and treating infections. ID is easy since, at least in theory, diseases have patterns and an infecting organism has a predictable epidemiology and life cycle. So if you can recognize the pattern and...
What do we do about politicians and physicians who promote antivaccine misinformation?
There are politicians and physicians out there promoting antivaccine misinformation. None of us expect politicians to be scientists or physicians, but we do expect them to listen to them. Worse are physicians who betray their profession to promote antivaccine pseudoscience. What can be done about these very public figures who endanger public health?
Hot-Zone Schools and Children at Risk: Shedding light on outbreak-prone schools
The subject of parental vaccine refusal and the impact that has on disease outbreaks has been covered many times on SBM and elsewhere. I apologize to our readers who are growing tired of the subject, but there is perhaps no subject more deserving of focus and repetition. There’s also an important angle to the discussion that I’ve written on previously and which...
An aboriginal girl dies of leukemia: Parental “rights” versus the right of a child to medical care
One topic that keeps recurring and obligating me to write about it consists of critically analyzing stories of children with cancer whose parents, either on their own or at the behest of their child, stop or refuse chemotherapy or other treatment. It is, sadly, a topic that I’ve been discussing for nearly a decade now, starting first on my not-so-super-secret other blog...
Smoking Cessation and the Affordable Care Act
Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death. Each year it kills more than 5 million people around the world, 480,000 in the US alone. And for every person who dies, about 30 more have serious illnesses caused by smoking. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers. Anyone who is concerned about preventive medicine must consider smoking cessation a priority....
Say it ain’t so, Mickey! A holiday measles outbreak makes the happiest place in the world sad
A measles outbreak at the Magic Kingdom? And it's due to unvaccinated children? Say it ain't so, Mickey!
Glyphosate – The New Bogeyman
There is an ideological subculture that is motivated to blame all the perceived ills of the world on environmental factors and corporate/government malfeasance. Often this serves a deeper ideological drive, which can be anti-vaccine, extreme environmentalism, or anti-GMO. The latest environmental bogeyman making the rounds is glyphosate, which is being blamed for (you guessed it) autism. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in...