Category: Vaccines

Changing Your Mind

Why is my mind so clean and pure?  Because I am always changing it. In medical school the old saying is that half of everything you learn will not be true in 10 years, the problem being they do not tell which half. In medicine, the approach is, one hopes, that data leads to an opinion.  You have to be careful not...

/ February 12, 2010

Success in the fight against childhood diarrhea

Rotavirus is the world’s most common cause of severe childhood diarrhea.  In the U.S. alone, rotavirus disease leads to around 70,000 hospitalizations, 3/4 million ER visits, and nearly half-a-million doctor office visits yearly.  But it rarely causes death. The same is not true for the developing world.  Rotavirus disease is estimated to kill around a half-million children a year world wide.  ...

/ February 1, 2010

The General Medical Council to Andrew Wakefield: “The panel is satisfied that your conduct was irresponsible and dishonest”

BACKGROUND In my not-so-humble opinion, the very kindest thing that can be said about Andrew Wakefield is that he is utterly incompetent as a scientist. After all, it’s been proven time and time again that his unethical and scientifically incompetent “study” that was published in The Lancet in 1999 claiming to find a correlation between vaccination with MMR and autistic regression in...

/ February 1, 2010

You can’t hide in the herd

Can you hide in the herd?  Well, I suppose the title has given away the punch line. Herd immunity is a fascinating effect, and one of the mainstays of a public vaccination effort.  The idea is that if enough people in the community are immune to a particular disease, then those who are susceptible will rarely come into contact with a person...

/ January 22, 2010

$10,000 reward not offered for scientific proof of supplements and alternative medicine therapies and effectiveness

Inspired by a post today In conjunction with UNaturalNews, the non-profit Consumer UnWellness Center  has publicly not offered a $10,000 reward for any person, company or institution who can provide trusted, scientific evidence proving that any of the supplements or alternative medical therapies being offered to Americans right now are both safe and effective. Supplement or alternative medical therapies promoters keep citing...

/ January 20, 2010

The anti-vaccine movement strikes back against Dr. Paul Offit

In my five years in the blogosphere, two years blogging for SBM, and over a decade in Internet discussion forums about medicine and “alternative” medicine, I’ve learned a few things. One thing that I’ve learned is that one of the biggest differences between those whose world view is based on science and who therefore promote science-based medicine and those promoting pseudoscience, quackery,...

/ January 4, 2010

The “pharma shill” gambit

It's the oldest, laziest trope used by quacks and those who love them. Facing science-based criticism? Obviously, then, your critic must be in the pocket of big pharma! I present...the Pharma Shill Gambit.

/ December 28, 2009

Measles

It looks like the H1N1 pandemic is fading fast. I am amazed at how lucky we were, at least in the hospitals where I work. A month ago all the ICU beds were full, most of the ventilators were in use and we were wondering how we were going to triage the next batch of patients who needed advanced life support and...

/ December 18, 2009

An Influenza Recap: The End of the Second Wave

We are nearing the end of the second wave of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, and are now a few months out from the release of the vaccine directed against it.  Two topics have dominated the conversation: the safety of the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine, and the actual severity of the 2009 H1N1 infection.  Considering the amount of attention SBM has paid the...

/ December 11, 2009

Yet another nail in the coffin of the myth that the MMR vaccine causes autism

Another study, another refutation of the myth that the MMR vaccine causes autism. The same as it ever was. Antivaccine activists won't listen. Also the same as it ever was.

/ December 7, 2009