Animal vaccinations

Without question, vaccination has been one of the most important interventions in disease prevention that has ever been developed. In spite of the demonstrable, and ongoing, success of vaccination, a small, but vocal, anti-vaccination movement has developed in human medicine, occasionally buttressed by horrifying instances of adverse reactions, as well as the occasional publications in scientific journals (vis, the Wakefield debacle). Vaccine...

/ January 11, 2009

The Weekly Waluation of the Weasel Words of Woo #9

Resurrection! Can y’believe it? The W^5/2™, that cesspool of Afflicted Sophistry and Festering Fallacy—not to say that wellspring of Awesome and Absolutely Annoying (Cloying) Alliteration© and that Mother of all Maddening Mixed Metaphors and Sundry Similitudes®—is back! Yup, like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes of near-terminal procrastination, and due to overwhelming popular demand, the W^5/2 is reborn!!! Well, it also might have something...

/ January 9, 2009

Our own slippery grounds

When we were forming the National Council against Health Fraud I wondered aloud to the president, Bill Jarvis, what we would do if society solved the chiropractic problem. Bill laughed and said there would never be an end to quackery claims. How right he was. But why? Many express surprise that at this time of remarkable intellectual and scientific advance, so many...

/ January 8, 2009

Who Should Ascend To The Office Of Surgeon General?

President-elect Obama’s nomination of CNN medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, for the Office of Surgeon General of the United States has ignited a firestorm of debate across the Internet. Some argue that he is not qualified for the position, others say that his charisma would be a boon to public health communications, though the lay majority appear to have mixed feelings. It is...

/ January 8, 2009

Paul Offit Takes On Robert Sears

Dr. Robert Sears, son of the perhaps more famous Dr. William Sears (both pediatricians), has continued his father’s work of publishing popular books for parents. He wrote The Vaccine Book: Making the right decision for your child, published in October 2007. In it he advocates his Dr. Bob’s Alternative Vaccine Schedule. Much of his claims made in the book are repeated on...

/ January 7, 2009

2008 Medical Weblog Awards

I am pleased to announce that Science-Based Medicine is a finalist for a 2008 Medical Weblog Award in the New Medical Blog category. You can see all the categories and finalists here: http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2009/01/the_2008_medical_weblog_awards_the_polls_are_open.html Of note, our blogging friend, Orac, is also a finalist for Respectful Insolence in the health policies/ethics category, along with our own Dr. Val Jones for her excellent blog,...

/ January 6, 2009

South Dakota’s Abortion Script: The Hijacking of Informed Consent

In a previous post, I suggested that informed consent could sometimes be misused. South Dakota has provided a clear example of such misuse and has set a frightening precedent reminiscent of Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984. A law went into effect in July, 2008, requiring that any woman seeking an abortion in South Dakota must be told that she is terminating...

/ January 6, 2009

Reality is unfair

This space has often hosted musings on the nature of scientific knowledge, on how medical science is based in methodological naturalism (MN), rather than supernaturalism.  MN requires that our acquisition of knowledge about the natural world be based on natural phenomena.  The reason for this should be quite obvious:  the natural world is the only one that exists, for all intents and...

/ January 5, 2009

Christine Maggiore and Eliza Jane Scovill: Living and dying with HIV/AIDS denialism

On Science-Based Medicine, we strive to apply the light of science and reason on all manner of unscientific belief systems about medicine. For the most part, but by no means exclusively, we have concentrated on so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) because there is an active movement to infiltrate faith-based, rather than science-based, modalities into “conventional” medicine. Indeed, such efforts are well-financed,...

/ January 5, 2009

AARP and Alternative Medicine

I know I said the next entry would be about the efficacy of the influenza vaccine. The road to blogging in paved with good intentions. I will eventually write that entry, but the ADD has kicked in and my attention has wandered elsewhere. I am 51 and one of the benefits of this advanced age is you get to join AARP, the...

/ January 2, 2009