Category: Public Health
e-Cigarette Safety
Ever since news of the harmful effects of tobacco smoke hit the public consciousess around the middle of the 20th century the tobacco industry and others have been looking for a “healthy” alternative. Are e-cigarettes just latest in a list of failed attempts to make smoking safe? In case you are a new visitor to our planet (welcome) using tobacco products has...
Radiation from medical imaging and cancer risk
Science-based medicine consists of a balancing of risks and benefits for various interventions. This is sometimes a difficult topic for the lay public to understand, and sometimes physicians even forget it. My anecdotal experience suggests that probably surgeons are usually more aware of this basic fact because our interventions generally involve taking sharp objects to people’s bodies and using steel to remove...
Another wrinkle to the USPSTF mammogram guidelines kerfuffle: What about African-American women?
A while back I wrote about rethinking how we screen for breast cancer using mammography. Basically, the USPSTF, an independent panel of physicians and health experts that makes nonbinding recommendations for the government on various health issues, reevaluated the evidence for routine screening mammography and concluded that for women at normal risk for breast cancer, mammography before age 50 should not be...
Cell phones and cancer again, or: Oh, no! My cell phone’s going to give me cancer! (revisited)
It’s been about a year and a half since I’ve written about this topic; so I thought I’d better update the disclaimer that I wrote at the beginning: Before I start into the meat of this post, I feel the need to emphasize, as strongly as I can, four things: I do not receive any funding from the telecommunications industry in general,...
The Mammogram Post-Mortem
The Mammogram Post Mortem Steve Novella whimsically opined on a recent phone call that irrationality must convey a survival advantage for humans. I’m afraid he has a point. It’s much easier to scare people than to reassure them, and we have a difficult time with objectivity in the face of a good story. In fact, our brains seem to be hard wired...
A temporary reprieve from legislative madness
While doctor visits for influenza-like illnesses seem to be trending downward again, and “swine flu” is becoming old news, I’d like to draw attention to an H1N1 story that has received very little coverage by the mainstream media. Doctors in several states can now protect their most vulnerable patients from the H1N1 virus without worrying about breaking the law. In order to save lives, several states...
The Institute for Science in Medicine enters the health care reform fray
I’ve been writing about the attempts of proponents of various pseudoscience, quackery, and faith-based religious “healing” modalities to slip provisions friendly to their interests into the health care reform bill that will be debated in the Senate beginning today. If you want to know what’s at stake, check out the first press release of a newly formed institute designed to promote science-based...
Naturopaths and the anti-vaccine movement: Hijacking the law in service of pseudoscience
Time and time again, we’ve seen it. When pseudoscientists and quacks can’t persuade the scientific and medical community of the validity of their claims, they go to the law to try to gain the legitimacy that their claims can’t garner through proving themselves by the scientific method. True, purveyors of pseudoscience and unscientifically-derived medical practices do crave the respectability of science. That’s...
Why Universal Hepatitis B Vaccination Isn’t Quite Universal
I am just a parent with some questions about vaccine safety and was happy to find your website. I have noticed that the Scandinavian countries do not routinely recommend HepB vaccination unless the mother is a known carrier. I did not see this addressed anywhere on your website and I hope you or one of your colleagues might consider discussing the reasons...