Category: Science and Medicine
Raw deal: Got diarrhea?
I recently saw a 14 year old girl in my office with a 2 day history of severe abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhea, and fever. Her mother had similar symptoms as did several other members of her household and some family friends. After considerable discomfort, everyone recovered within a few days. The child’s stool culture grew a bacterium called Campylobacter. Campylobacter is a nasty...
AA is Faith-Based, Not Evidence-Based
Alcoholics Anonymous is the most widely used treatment for alcoholism. It is mandated by the courts, accepted by mainstream medicine, and required by insurance companies. AA is generally assumed to be the most effective treatment for alcoholism, or at least “an” effective treatment. That assumption is wrong. We hear about a few success stories, but not about the many failures. AA’s own...
Homeocracy 3
The previous post of this series analyzed the results of the 1994 Pediatrics paper purporting to show a statistically significant effect of homeopathic preparations on acute childhood diarrhea in a population in Nicaragua. That clinical trial followed a pilot study that also had shown a small but statistically significant effect of homeopathic remedies. A moment here for explanation as to why I am...
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May 14, 2009
Being Right Versus Being Influential
On May 9th I had the pleasure of lecturing to an audience of critical thinkers at the NYC Skeptics meeting. The topic of discussion was pseudoscience on the Internet – and I spent about 50 minutes talking about all the misleading health information and websites available to (and frequented by) patients. The common denominator for most of these well-intentioned but misguided efforts...
Acupuncture Does Not Work for Back Pain
A new study which randomized 638 adults to either standard acupuncture, individualized acupuncture, placebo acupuncture using tooth picks that did not penetrate the skin, and standard therapy found exactly what previous evidence has also suggested – it does not seem to matter where you stick the needles or even if you stick the needles through the skin. The only reasonable scientific conclusion...
Re-evaluating Home Monitoring for Diabetes: Science-Based Medicine at Work
There is no question that patients on insulin benefit from home monitoring. They need to adjust their insulin dose based on their blood glucose readings to avoid ketoacidosis or insulin shock. But what about patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes, those who are being treated with diet and lifestyle changes or oral medication? Do they benefit from home monitoring? Does it improve their...
Define the disease first
My first post on this blog addressed the problem of what I have called “fake diseases” (a problem which needs a more neutral moniker). As I wrote at the time, people suffering from vague ailments are often twice victimized: the medical establishment cannot satisfy them, and quacks prey on them. There’s a certain sense of satisfaction and validation to having your symptoms...
How I would run the CAM club
During the past academic year, I have written about CAM on campus for my student newspaper and fancy myself now somewhat notorious among the students who care about the issue. My article in the fall issue was a review of a homeopathy lecture that I described in detail for my first SBM post. In the winter issue I discussed two dueling WSJ opinions and...
Flu Woo Hodge Podge
Perhaps you have discovered for yourself that I am always the last to write a post on a ‘hot’ topic. I am definitely the slowest writer (and thinker?) on this blog, starting each post at least a week before it is up. So the faster writers weigh in first and I am left with clean up. As I finish writing on Thursday,...
Georgia on my mind
My inaugural post was about vaccines, and I promised that I wouldn’t write exclusively on this topic. But something rotten is brewing in the state of Georgia and this story is just too important to ignore. The first successful challenge to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act (NCVICA) has taken place in Georgia, and we all should be just a little...