Results for: vaccine
When compassion is outshined by ignorance
In a media-saturated society, public figures have a disproportionate influence on people’s understanding of science and medicine. Most patients see their doctor no more than a couple of times a year, but they watch TV, go online, or read a paper daily. In our newspapers and in our news rooms, dedicated science reporters are becoming vanishingly rare. A wide range of...
Nobel for HIV Discoverers
The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded this week to two French virologists, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc A. Montagnier, for discovering the AIDS causing virus, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). They will share half the prize of 1.4 million dollars, the other half going to three Dr. Harald zur Hausen for discovering the human papilloma virus and its relation to cervical cancer....
Voice of Reason Dr. Val Jones joins Science-Based Medicine
We at Science-Based Medicine are very happy to announce that Dr. Val Jones will be joining us this week as a regular blogger. Her first post will appear this Thursday, October 9. Val Jones, M.D. is the President and CEO of Better Health, PLLC, a health education company devoted to providing scientifically accurate health information to consumers. Most recently she was the...
Val Jones, MD
Val Jones, MD is the President and CEO of Better Health, PLLC, a health education company devoted to providing scientifically accurate health information to consumers. Most recently she was the Senior Medical Director of Revolution Health, a consumer health portal with over 120 million page views per month in its network. Prior to her work with Revolution Health, Dr. Jones served as the founding...
David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS – Managing Editor
Personal blog: Respectful Insolence Email: [email protected] Twitter: @gorskon Instagram: @gorskon Mastodon: Mastodon [NOTE: If you Googled Dr. Gorski’s name and found information that concerns you (for example, a “TruthWiki” entry about Dr. Gorski), please scroll to “A note for potential patients Googling for information about Dr. Gorski” for an explanation. Thank you.] DAVID H. GORSKI, MD, PhD, FACS is Professor of Surgery...
Autism’s false prophets revealed
Dr. Paul Offit has written a book about the false prophets of autism, those who promote the idea that vaccines cause autism and those who sell quackery to treat autism, which are often the same people. If you want a good history of how the "vaccines cause autism" myth started, this is a great primer.
A Budget of Anecdotes
Anecdotal evidence. An oxymoron? Or a valid approach to understanding data? The problem is there are different kinds of anecdotes, used for different purposes, but the purpose of anecdotes is rarely if ever defined explicitly. Anecdotes are used for one purpose by one speaker/writer but interpreted in a different context by the listener/reader. People love anecdotes, especially if the anecdotes are about...
Sometimes science and ethics win out
Yesterday was a good day.It was a good day because it was one of the days that shows that, sometimes, science and ethics do win out after all: CHICAGO (AP) — A government agency has dropped plans for a study of a controversial treatment for autism that critics had called an unethical experiment on children. The National Institute of Mental Health said...
Postmodernist attacks on science-based medicine
The postmodernist critique of science consists of two interrelated arguments, epistemological and ideological. Both are based on subjectivity. First, because of the subjectivity of the human object, anthropology, according to the epistemological argument cannot be a science; and in any event the subjectivity of the human subject precludes the possibility of science discovering objective truth. Second, since objectivity is an illusion, science...
Threats to science-based medicine: When clinical trials for new drugs are designed by the marketing division
When the marketing division designs clinical trials, scientific medicine loses.