Category: Public Health

A pox on your bank account: failure to vaccinate and its legal consequences

Here’s a question anti-vaxers may want to consider: Can the parents of an unvaccinated child be held liable if their child becomes infected with a vaccine-preventable disease which then spreads from their child to another child or children? Yes, they can. In fact, for over 125 years, courts in this country have recognized a cause of action for negligent transmission of an...

/ August 27, 2010

High Fructose Corn Syrup: Tasty Toxin or Slandered Sweetener?

The perils of fructose: High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has, over the past few decades, gradually displaced cane and beet sugar as the sweetener of choice for soft drinks, candy and prepared foods. In recent years, there have been a growing number claims that HFCS is a significant health risk to consumers, responsible for obesity, diabetes, heart disease and a wide variety of...

/ August 23, 2010

How to make a difference – Responsible vaccine advocacy

I lost a patient this season, an infant, to pertussis.  After falling ill he lived for nearly a month in the intensive care unit on a ventilator, three weeks of which was spent on a heart/lung bypass machine (ECMO) due to the extent of the damage to his lungs, but all our efforts were in vain.  The most aggressive and advanced care...

/ August 20, 2010

Dr. Donald Berwick and “patient-centered” medicine: Letting the woo into the new health care law?

There’s been a bit of buzz in the health blogs over President Obama’s decision last week to use the mechanism of a recess appointment to be the director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Recess appointments, for those who may not be aware, allow a President to put a nominee in place when Congress is in recess in order...

/ July 12, 2010

CAM in “Obamacare”

On March 30th, President Obama signed the final piece of healthcare reform legislation concluding an epic battle that ultimately lead to the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The bill enforces the largest change to US healthcare for decades and has provided an opportunity for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) advocates to be federally endorsed in our future...

/ June 17, 2010

In which Dr. Gorski once again finds himself a target of the “pharma shill” gambit

When quacks can't answer with science (which is most commonly), they fall back on their favorite ad hominem attack. They call their critics "pharma shills." Then they try to silence them by almost any means they view as necessary.

/ June 14, 2010

WHO, H1N1, and Conflicts of Interest

On June 11, 2009 Dr Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the H1N1 flu that was then spreading around the world was an official pandemic. This triggered a series of built-in responses in many countries, including stockpiling anti-viral medications and preparing for a mass H1N1 vaccination program. At the time the flu was still in...

/ June 9, 2010

Nine differences between “us and them,” nine straw men burning

I’ll start this post by admitting right up front: I blatantly stole the idea for the title of this post from Mark Crislip’s most excellently infamous post Nine questions, nine answers. Why? Because I really liked that post and felt like it. Also, there seems to be something about the number nine among anti-vaccine zealots: Nine “questions.” Nine circles of hell. Nine...

/ May 31, 2010

Is Organic Food More Healthful?

In 1952 Martin Gardner, who just passed away this week at the age of 95, wrote about organic farming in his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. He characterized it as a food fad without scientific justification. Now, 58 years later, the science has not changed much at all. A recent review of the literature of the last 50...

/ May 26, 2010

Epiphany

The Institute of Medicine report is a frequent ‘rebuttal’ to science based/real medicine. The argument is usually phrased something to the effect that since medicine can be dangerous, SCAM’s are legitimate. Of course, one does not follow the other. It is the equivalent of saying since you are old, bald and pudgy, I am young, have a full head of hair, and...

/ May 21, 2010