The 2008-2009 Report of the President’s Cancer Panel: Mostly good, some bad, and a little ugly

Mark Crislip is always a hard act to follow, particularly when he’s firing on all cylinders, as he was last Friday. Although I can sometimes match him (and, on rare occasions, even surpass him) for amusing snark, this time around I’m going to remain mostly serious because that’s what the subject matter requires. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:...

/ May 10, 2010

Nine Questions, Nine Answers.

This is not an easy blog to write.  Doctors Novella and Gorski want the entries to be formal, academic, referenced, with a minimum of snark. For the most part I comply. But sometimes. Sometimes. It is hard, so hard,  not to spiral into sarcastic diatribes over the writings that pass for information on the interwebs. How should one respond to profound ignorance...

/ May 7, 2010

How do religious-based hospitals affect physician behavior?

Science-based medicine is, among other things, a tool.  Science helps us sequester our biases so that we may better understand reality.  Of course, there is no way to avoid being human; our biases and our intuition still betray us, and when they do, we use other tools.  Ethics help us think through situations using an explicitly-stated set of values that most of...

/ May 6, 2010

Low Dose Naltrexone – Bogus or Cutting Edge Science?

On SBM we have documented the many and various ways that science is abused in the pursuit of health (or making money from those who are pursuing health). One such method is to take a new, but reasonable, scientific hypothesis and run with it, long past the current state of the evidence. We see this with the many bogus stem cell therapy...

/ May 5, 2010

Food Allergies and Food Addiction

Last week I wrote about the CME presentations at an obesity course put on by the American Society of Bariatric Physicians. I saved the most controversial one for last. Dr. Kendall Gerdes is a former president of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, which I have previously written about. The AAEM is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties and...

/ May 4, 2010

Pediatric Chiropractic Care: Scientifically Indefensible?

In a paper published in 2008, two academic chiropractors offered this observation: “The health claims made by chiropractors with respect to the application of manipulation as a health care intervention for pediatric health conditions continue to be supported by only low levels of scientific evidence. Chiropractors continue to treat a wide variety of pediatric health conditions.”1 Despite lack of support by the...

/ May 3, 2010

Dr. Jay Gordon: Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Dr. Jay Gordon is dissatisfied with how a PBS documentary handled the vaccines-autism controversy. Despite a lengthy effort at rebuttal, none of his points reflect what is known scientifically about vaccines and autism. Instead he relies on unjustified claims, appeals to emotion, and tacit assertions that his clinical judgment is equal, or superior, to the scientific evidence to date.

/ April 30, 2010

Bogus Diagnostic Tests

A few years ago a friend asked me to comment on advice given to her adult daughter by a psychiatrist whom she’d consulted for depression. The psychiatrist had recommended testing samples of saliva and urine for hormone and neurotransmitter levels, the results of which would likely indicate a need for supplements to correct deficiencies or imbalances. According to the psychiatrist, who had...

/ April 29, 2010

The Vaccine War

On Tuesday night PBS FRONTLINE aired an episode about the anti-vaccine movement entitled The Vaccine War (which, by the time you read this, should be available for online viewing in case you missed it). When I first heard that this show was going to air, I was a bit concerned. My concern, of course is what I’m always concerned about when journalists...

/ April 29, 2010

The Other Anti-Vaccinationists

Those with an anti-vaccine ideology come from various starting points. There are those who just hate vaccines – because they don’t trust the system, they don’t like the idea of injecting something into their children, or they blame vaccines for their child’s illness or disorder. There is also the “mercury militia” – those who blame environmental mercury for all ills, and whose...

/ April 28, 2010