Denialism

Month: January 2012

  • Why no one should take Nexium and it should never have been approved

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    As Chris discussed Saturday the WSJ had a silly article in which a woman demands a prescription drug from a flight attendant, asking for the wrong drug to treat her problem acutely, and then shockingly was refused this service. Worse, Nexium is mentioned by name, multiple times, and Nexium is actually a drug which should…

  • Everything is Terrible

    —

    by

    Chris
    in

    Denialism fans, you might enjoy the archive of informercials at my favorite website, Everything is Terrible. It’s so much fun to watch all those lame infomercials from the 80s and 90s and realize how little has changed in the marketing world. Okay, back to Chair Dancing.

  • Is this Product Placement in the Wall Street Journal?

    —

    by

    Chris
    in

    Writing in the Saturday (how to make it look like you’re rich edition) of the Wall Street Journal, Marisa Acocella Marchetto mentions an expensive, branded drug–Nexium–eight times. She even mentions its slogan (“the purple pill”)! As Mark has written elsewhere, it’s moronic to take Nexium because there are cheaper, efficacious alternatives, such as Prilosec, which…

  • The New Yorker Ranks the Republicans vs. Science

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    And get’s it wrong What’s amazing is they rank Newt first at the same time acknowledging he destroyed the Office of Technology Assessment. Jon Huntsman may have the most rational scientific and technological policies of anyone in the field, but Gingrich, sometimes called Newt Skywalker, has far more passion. As Kelefa Sanneh argues in the…

  • Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) sell out science

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    I’m never shocked by what Issa can do in a never-ending downward spiral of serving business interests, but it’s sad that NY rep Carolyn Maloney has joined him backing a bill to sell out science. Once again the publishers are trying to destroy public access, and make everyone pay to read science you’ve already paid…

  • Don’t mess with your neck doing yoga either

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in ,

    For some reason the NYT is all about neck injury lately. In yesterday’s discussion of a possible chiropractic induced injury, Russell asked: But given all the other stresses people put on their necks, from accidents such as headbumps, from purposeful athletics such as whacking soccer balls, and from just craning one’s head in odd positions…

  • Duesberg Strikes a blow for HIV/AIDS denialism

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    When Duesberg was recently given space in Scientific American I think the blogosphere was rightly chagrinned that they would give space to a crank whose crackpot ideas are thought to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. But it seemed at the time he had been keeping his denialism on the down low,…

  • Think like a doctor, don’t let them crack your neck!

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    This week’s think like a doctor column in the NYT is great. It asks the question, if a woman goes to a chiropractor, gets her neck manipulated, and within hours and for the succeeding four years she’s had symptoms of severe headaches and a pulsatile sound in her ears, what is the diagnosis? You can…

  • Is Huffington Post no longer a denialist site?

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in ,

    Seth Mnookin has reasons to hope. It has been clear though for years that Huffpo was a clearinghouse for what I would describe as liberal crankery, which includes things like Jenny McCarthy’s anti-vaccine crankery, or Bill Maher’s anti-pharma paranoia. But now they have a new site, Huffpo Science, and after my head stopped ringing from…

  • New Years Resolutions

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    As you can see, mine included blogging again. Fortunately, I’m in a brief research hiatus from surgical residency, so for the next year or so, I actually have some free time. Today I was inspired to start by the Huffington Post of all things, and with good news!