Category: Public Health
An open letter to Dr. J. Douglas Bremner
Peter Lipson wrote a post last week entitled Before You Trust That Blog…, which was a criticism of Dr. J. Douglas Bremner’s blog Before You Take That Pill. Dr. Bremner was not pleased, and posted a rebuttal entitled Response to Peter Lipson MD of “Science” Based Blogs, My Blog Does Not Suck, Yours Does. Given the kerfuffle and my role as managing...
More Flu Woo For You, Boo Boo
In which we try to be smarter than the average bear. Flu season is upon us (it kind of never left us this year), and there is a new strain of flu, the H1N1, aka Swine flu that adds a wrinkle or two to the usual potential for influenza related morbidity and mortality. And with the new flu is the new woo....
The Golden State of Pseudo-Science
The state of California (CA) which is home to the most advanced education and research in biomedical sciences, computational biology, genomics and proteomics, etc, is also home to 19 institutions that have state-approved training programs in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a pseudo-medicine that is based on ideas and practices sourced by ancient cosmology, mythology, astrology, and a range of other pre-scientific beliefs that...
“Oh, come on, Superman!”: Bill Maher versus “Western medicine”
I realize that I’ve spent a fair amount of verbiage (to put it mildly) expressing my frustration with celebrities whose support for pseudoscience and even outright quackery endanger public health. The two most frequent targets of the wrath, sarcasm, frustration, and puzzlement of me and my partners in crime at SBM have been Jenny McCarthy and her boyfriend Jim Carrey for their...
An Influenza Primer
What is influenza? What is H1N1 influenza? Why is it more worrisome than the usual 'flu season? Read on to find out...
Vaccines and the Media: No Room for Balance
© 2009 msnbc.com Matt Lauer and NBC have continued the ignominious media tradition of feigning to bring “balance” to the issue of vaccine safety. In the Dateline episode A Dose of Controversy, which aired on Sunday night, Matt Lauer interviewed Andrew Wakefield, the originator of the MMR-causes-autism myth, and highlighted his work at Thoughtful House, the autism treatment center he created in Texas after...
The perils and pitfalls of doing a “vaccinated versus unvaccinated” study
The anti-vaccine movement is nothing if not plastic. It “evolves” very rapidly in response to selective pressures applied to it in the form of science refuting its key beliefs. For instance, when multiple studies looking at the MMR vaccine and autism failed to confirm the myth that the MMR causes autism or “autistic enterocolitis,” most recently late last year, it was not...
A Defense of Childhood Influenza Vaccination and Squalene-Containing Adjuvants; Joseph Mercola’s “Dirty Little Secret”
Fall is around the corner, and with it comes the influenza season. Each year an average of 200,000 people in the US are hospitalized with influenza, and 36,000 die.1,2 With the addition of the novel H1N1 strain (swine flu), this season promises to be more interesting, and even less predictable, than most. There can be no doubt, however, that this one set of...
Cashing In On Fear: The Danger of Dr. Sears
Dr. Sears is a popular pediatrician who has written a dangerous and deceptive book on vaccination.
Are one in three breast cancers really overdiagnosed and overtreated?
Screening for disease is a real pain. I was reminded of this by the publication of a study in BMJ the very day of the Science-Based Medicine Conference a week and a half ago. Unfortunately, between The Amaz!ng Meeting and other activities, I was too busy to give this study the attention it deserved last Monday. Given the media coverage of the...