Tag: World Health Organization
Is Gaming Addiction a Thing?
The WHO has added gaming disorder as an official ICD diagnosis, and the APA is considering adding gaming disorder to the DSM. What is gaming disorder and how should it be diagnosed?
ICD-11: A triumph of the “integration” of quackery with real medicine
ICD-10 is an a standardized system of alphanumeric codes for diagnoses maintained by the World Health Organization used throughout the world for billing, epidemiology, research, and cataloging causes of death. Its successor, ICD-11, is nearing completion, and unfortunately appears to be taking the "integration" of traditional medicine to a whole new level by integrating quack diagnoses with real diagnoses.
Why Antibiotic Use Scares Me
Editor’s note: Today we present a guest post from fourth-year medical student Joshua Horton, about the looming problem of antibiotic resistance. Welcome! I read a study recently that alarmed me: acute bronchitis is a condition that rarely requires antibiotics, but three quarters of patients presenting with this condition receive a prescription for antibiotics. Even more worrisome, this statistic has not changed in...
No, the CDC did not just “admit” that this year’s flu vaccine doesn’t work
Since the press release was originally issued on Thursday by now surely most of you have seen the news stories that popped up beginning yesterday morning with headlines like “CDC Warning: Flu Viruses Mutate and Evade Current Vaccine“, or “Flu vaccine protects against wrong strain, US health officials warn“, or “Flu shots may not be good match for 2014-15 virus, CDC says“,...
Fear mongering about vaccines as “racist population control” in Kenya
There are many conspiracy theories about vaccines, and they circulate almost continuously. Some are relatively new, but most are at least a few years old. They all tend to fall into several defined types, such as the “CDC whistleblower” story, which posits that the “CDC knew” all these years that vaccines cause autism but covered it up, even going so far as...
Ebola conspiracy theories: Same as it ever was
Does anyone remember the H1N1 influenza pandemic? As hard as it is to believe, that was five years ago. One thing I remember about the whole thing is just how crazy both the antivaccine movement and conspiracy theorists (but I repeat myself) went attacking reasonable public health campaigns to vaccinate people against H1N1. It was truly an eye-opener, surpassing even what I...
Ebola outbreaks: Science versus fear mongering and quackery
“Ebola virus particles” by Thomas W. Geisbert, Boston University School of Medicine – PLoS Pathogens, November 2008 doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000225. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons. Without a doubt the big medical story of the last week or so has been the ongoing outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa, the most deadly in history thus far. Indeed, as of this...
Holding the Polio Vaccine Hostage
Since the development of the vaccine, perhaps the most effective public health measure we have yet devised, only one human disease has been completely eradicated from the world – smallpox. The last case was reported in Somalia in 1977. Eradication was the result of a deliberate and intense campaign, requiring almost complete vaccination of the population, especially in certain population dense areas....
WHO Partnering with Traditional Healers in Africa
The World Health Organization is recommending the use of traditional healers in Africa to help in the treatment of HIV. Is this a good idea, or a devil's bargain?