Results for: autism
Certainty versus knowledge in medicine
I don’t want knowledge. I want certainty! — David Bowie, from Law (Earthlings on Fire) If there’s a trait among humans that seems universal, it appears to be an unquenchable thirst for certainty. It is likely to be a major force that drives people into the arms of religion, even radical religions that have clearly irrational views, such as the idea that...
Mumps
I write this post with a great deal of trepidation. The last time I perused the Medical Voices website I found nine questions that needed answering. So I answered them. One of the consequences of that blog entry was the promise that Medical Voices was poised to “tear my arguments to shreds.” Tear to shreds! Such a painful metaphor. They specified that...
Nine differences between “us and them,” nine straw men burning
I’ll start this post by admitting right up front: I blatantly stole the idea for the title of this post from Mark Crislip’s most excellently infamous post Nine questions, nine answers. Why? Because I really liked that post and felt like it. Also, there seems to be something about the number nine among anti-vaccine zealots: Nine “questions.” Nine circles of hell. Nine...
Andrew Wakefield Fights Back
Dr. Andrew Wakefield was almost single-handedly responsible for frightening the public about a possible association between autism and the MMR vaccine. His alarmist recommendations directly led to lower vaccination rates and a resurgence of measles to endemic levels in the UK. The MMR/autism interpretation of his 1998 article in The Lancet was retracted by 10 of his 12 co-authors. The article itself...
Stand up for science-based medicine against anti-vaccine fear mongering in Chicago today
As I’ve pointed out numerous times this week, anti-vaccine loons, led Generation Rescue and a “health freedom” group, have organized an anti-vaccine rally in Grant Park in Chicago from 3 PM to 5 PM CDT. Andrew Wakefield himself will be the keynote speaker, and there will even be some very bad music promoting the anti-vaccine message. The rally, with its wonderfully Orwellian...
“Medical Voices” on vaccines: Brave, brave Sir Robin…
Antivaxers and other pseudoscientific cranks love to challenge science advocates to public debates. It's rarely worth the effort, and I, for one, do not debate cranks. Here's an amusing story of one such challenge, and what happened when the antivaxers making it didn't get the response they expected.
Alcohol and Pregnancy
We know that drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause birth defects; the government-mandated warnings on alcoholic beverage labels constantly remind us of that fact. But toxicologists remind us that the poison is in the dose: what is the dose of alcohol that causes birth defects? Heavy drinking can cause fetal alcohol syndrome, but there is no evidence that light to moderate drinking...
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...
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.
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...