Category: Science and Medicine
Mouse Model of Sepsis Challenged
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calls into question the standard mouse model of sepsis, trauma, and infection. The research is an excellent example of how proper science investigates its own methods. Mouse and other animal models are essential to biomedical research. The goal is to find a specific animal model of a human disease...
Honey Boo Boo
My son has been coughing for several weeks, and the cough will probably persist for another 2 or 3 weeks. Coughs last a long time. Patients think a cough will go away in less than a week but in reality they are likely to last several weeks. Coughs are a pain for the patient and an annoyance for the people around them....
One Flu Into the Cuckoo’s Nest
“I don’t seem able to get it straight in my mind….” ― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Influenza is going gangbusters at the moment. I like going to Google Flu trends as well as the CDC flu site to see what flu is doing. Using Google searches as a surrogate for infections is an interesting technique that public health...
The Placebo Narrative
Science journalist Sharon Begley wrote a recent piece in The Saturday Evening Post about Placebo Power. The piece, while generally better than the typical popular writing on placebos, still falls into the standard placebo narrative that is ubiquitous in the mainstream media. The article is virtually identical to a dozen other articles I have read on placebo effects in the popular press,...
SCAMlandia. CAM in Oregon.
I quite like Portlandia. I find it funny and it captures a part of Portland. I recognize large swaths of the city’s culture in the show. Other representations of the city I recognize less. Sunset publishes beautiful photographs of the NW, but when I look at the photos I think, that section of the city never looks that good. It is quite...
The Shred Diet: A Minimally Kooky Way To Lose Weight
With New Years’ weight loss resolutions freshly made, let’s take a science-based look at another of the latest diet books being promoted by various public relations agencies. In my last post we explored the claims made by the hysterical Eat To Save Your Life authors in their book featuring a demonic cheeseburger on its cover jacket. Today I will review, Shred: The...
What’s past is prologue
Today marks the five year anniversary of the blog. I was not part of the initial stable of writers, my first entry published Jan 31. As I remember it shortly thereafter they browbeat me into writing twice a month. I had a lot of hesitancy participating as I was uncertain I could keep up with the twice monthly writing requirements. I am...
780.6. What is a fever?
You can tell what a doctor does for a living by the ICD-9 codes they have memorized. There is an ICD-9 code for nearly every medical condition. Weightlessness is 994.9. Must be there for NASA, I have yet to see a weightless patient. Decapitation by guillotine is E978. There, I suppose, in case Marat returns from the dead. There is an ICD-9...
Why Do People turn to Alternative Medicine
Any sociological question is likely going to have a complex answer with many variables that are not easy to tease apart. We should therefore resist the temptation to make simplistic statements about X being the cause of Y. We can still, however, identify correlations that will at least inform our thinking. Sometimes correlations can be triangulated to fairly reliable conclusions. When the...
Fever Phobia
Should you be afraid of your child having a fever? It depends, but probably not.