Sharks Get Cancer, Mole Rats Don’t: Clues to Understanding Cancer
We think of cancer as caused by mutations. Mutations are necessary, but not sufficient, to cause cancer. New research indicates that it’s the body’s response to mutant cells that determines whether cancer will develop. James S. Welsh, MD, a radiation oncologist and researcher, has written a book on the immunology of cancer, Sharks Get Cancer, Mole Rats Don’t: How Animals Could Hold...
Medical exemptions to vaccine mandates for sale after SB277! Get ’em before they’re gone!
When California passed SB 277 into law, eliminating personal belief exemptions to school vaccine requirements and permitting only personal medical exemptions, I predicted that antivaccine quacks would start issuing bogus medical exemptions. Unfortunately, I was right.
Chiropractors, Blind Pigs, and Acorns
When people are at the end of their life they like to pass on their life lessons. One thing I have never had a patient say is “Doc, I sure wish I had spent more time at work.” I try and keep that in mind, but then there are those work commitments that are hard to avoid. I need to have a...
What (if anything) does “natural” mean?
What does the term “natural” mean on a label? Does it mean anything? Should it mean anything? Good questions. And complicated ones, judging from the list of questions the FDA needs your help in answering. The FDA has resisted defining “natural” in food product labeling, including whether foods that are genetically engineered, or contain genetically engineered ingredients, can use the term. Back...
Parents Convicted in Death of Toddler
This is a very sad and tragic case, and I have great sympathy for the extended family of Ezekiel Stephan, the 19-month-old who died of meningitis four years ago. In my opinion, there are many victims in this case. The jury, apparently, agreed. Yesterday they returned a guilty verdict for Ezekiel’s parents, David and Collet Stephan, who now face sentencing for failing...
Reclassifying thyroid cancer and the willful misunderstanding of overdiagnosis
If there’s one lesson that we here at Science-Based Medicine like to emphasize, it’s that practicing medicine and surgery is complicated. Part of the reason that it’s complicated is that for many diseases our understanding is incomplete, meaning that physicians have to apply existing science to their treatment as well as they can. The biology of cancer, in particular, can be vexing....
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Not-So-Normal Newborn Nursery: Chiropractic and Brachial Plexus Injury
Thanks to a hot tip from a follower on Twitter, I’ve once again found myself neck deep in chiropractic propaganda involving the care of a pediatric patient. The case as presented involves, among numerous specious assumptions, claims of successfully treating an infant’s paralyzed arm using chiropractic philosophy and spinal adjustment techniques. As I will explain in detail, this “miracle” is just another...
The Brown M&M’s of Science-Based Medicine
Medicine is constantly changing, and like most health professionals, I am required to maintain my competency to practice. I doubt pharmacists are unique in being inundated with offers of continuing medical/pharmacy education. Some courses are free, some cost hundreds of dollars, and it can be difficult to distinguish the high-quality programs from the biased or low-quality education that furthers a agenda, rather...
Behold my power, quacks, and despair! Mike Adams publishes several defamatory articles about yours truly…
Internet crank, quack, and conspiracy theorist Mike Adams has launched a campaign of character assassination against yours truly. I didn't know I had so much power.
Is the Annual Physical Unnecessary?
I was approached by The Wall Street Journal to write an article for their Big Issues in Health Care debate series. The subject was “Is the annual physical unnecessary?” I was to take the “yes” side and an internist was to take the “no” side. I wrote the following article. The editor wrote me a couple of times with questions. The internist...