Cholesterol Skeptics Strike Again
I’m really tired of arguing about cholesterol, but I feel obliged to stand up once more to defend science-based medicine from unfair calumny. Lewis Jones’s article “Cholesterol-shmesterol” in Skeptical Briefs (December 2007) included errors and misconceptions about cholesterol. It was a re-hash of the same kind of misinformation that is being spread by The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) and that...
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....
A “Shruggie” Awakening – One Doctor’s Journey Toward Scientific Enlightenment
In her inaugural post, Dr. Val Jones discusses her transition from being a shruggie - unaware of the risks and harms of alternative medicine - to awakened.
Vitamin C strikes (out) again
A new research paper on vitamin C and cancer came out recently, but didn't get much attention in the press. Why not? Because this one found vitamin C actually made things worse.
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...
Pitfalls in Regulating Physicians. Part 2: The Games Scoundrels Play
A Few Things that No Doctor Should Do When a physician is accused of DUI, “substance abuse,” being too loose with narcotic prescriptions, throwing scalpels in the OR, or diddling patients, the response of a state medical board† tends to be swift and definitive. Shoot first, ask questions later. After all, the first responsibility of the board is to the public’s safety, not to preserving...
Is medical academia just following academia?
Is Medical Academia repeating Academia’s history? In a recent essay in a small-circulation, specialized periodical, Academic Questions, Prof. John M. Ellis, emeritus Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, recounts the past 4-5 decades of changes in liberal arts departments in US colleges. (How Preferences Have Corrupted Higher Education, Acad Quest, 2008; 21(2):265-274) One modern academic controversy not needing recounting is the...
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October 2, 2008
Cognitive Dissonance at the New York Times
Humans have the very odd ability to hold contradictory, even mutually exclusive, ideas in their brains at the same time. There are two basic processes at work to make this possible. The first is compartmentalization – the ideas are simply kept separate. They are trains on different tracks that never cross. We can switch from to the other, but they never crash...
What’s for Dinner?
Diet advice changes so fast it’s almost a full-time job to keep up with it. Avoid cholesterol; no, avoid saturated fats; no, avoid trans-fats. Avocados are bad; no, avocados are good. Wheat germ is passé; now omega 3s are de rigueur. The supermarket overwhelms us with an embarras de richesses, a confusing superabundance of choices from “organic” to low-sodium. How can we...
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.