Denialism

Month: June 2008

  • I’m going to hide in Canada…

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    MarkH
    in

    …but I’m pretty sure Jimmy knows his way around there. HT Archeaoporn, Cectic

  • Too disgusting to ignore

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    MarkH
    in

    Reading Ed Brayton’s discussion of the contrasting behaviors of our two presidential candidates with regards to law and Supreme Court decisions, I couldn’t resist comment. One of the few advantages of medschool is that it keeps me from reading the news while I’m studying for exams, most recently my internal medicine shelf exam yesterday. Thus…

  • Watch as Pfizer desperately clings to a patent…

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    MarkH
    in

    …instead of focusing on innovation. I’ve written about Pfizer and Lipitor a few times in the last year. Now, Pfizer has found a way to extend its patent on Lipitor, a very profitable drug used in the management of heart disease and high cholesterol. Lipitor’s a great drug. It treats high cholesterol very effectively, and…

  • Skeptics’ Circle #89 is up

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    MarkH
    in

    This time from Africa! (Which doesn’t help explain the blog’s name at all, but it’s good.)

  • The Taiping Rebellion—mass murder in the name of Jesus’s crazy little brother

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    MarkH
    in

    A number of years ago, I saw an older physician reading a book with an intriguing title—God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan, by Jonathan Spence. Like most Americans, I know very little about Chinese history. I certainly had no idea that there was a massive civil war in 19th century China…

  • Pending hiatus

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    MarkH
    in

    On Saturday, I’ll be heading up north. Way up north. To the north where the precious intertubes do not reach, where pagers are for skipping across the water, and cellphones are coasters. It’s that far north. I’m going to take pictures, and take notes, and my plan is to have a bunch of non-medical, non-debunking…

  • Fountain pens

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    MarkH
    in ,

    I love fountain pens, but I’m far to busy for the regular ritual of cleaning, filling, etc. Most of my day is spent scrawling notes or typing on a keyboard. But there is one task for which only a fountain pen will do.

  • Pain, privacy, and safety

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    MarkH
    in

    Abel over at TerraSig dug up an interesting story about a man who was “murdered” killed rendered not-living (in the moral if not legal sense) by a “fake chiropractor” (although it’s not clear to me what science separates a “real” from a “fake” chiropractor). One of the commenters wondered if lack of health insurance had…

  • Placebo effect, not placebo treatment

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    MarkH
    in

    In the course of reading the comments in the last several posts, I’ve come upon many mentions of the “placebo effect”. Steve Novella has a few good posts on the placebo effect, but I’d like to take a look at the clinical view.

  • Goodbye, Mr. Russert

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    MarkH
    in

    Tim Russert died suddenly today. I admired his journalism, his ability to press questions that has become so rare. He didn’t seem to suffer from the “two-side-ism” that has become so common in today’s journalism; he realized that some issues don’t have two valid opposing views. But others will eulogize him. I’d like to talk…