Denialism

Author: MarkH

  • Don’t mess with your neck doing yoga either

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    MarkH
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    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

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    MarkH
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    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!

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    MarkH
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    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?

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    MarkH
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    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

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    MarkH
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    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!

  • The New Scientist Debates Denialism

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    MarkH
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    Luckily they don’t make the mistake of actually debating denialists. The feature of last weeks issue, “Age of Denial” is a series of articles by skeptics and one laughable rebuttal, discussing the nature of denialism and tactics to use against it. They do quite a good job covering the basics, starting with Deborah MacKenzie and…

  • Surgery

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    MarkH
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    I have now completed almost a year of surgical internship, and as I’m sure you’ve noticed from my sparse blogging, I’ve had little free time for writing. It’s a shame too because surgery is just so cool. Intern year is mostly about learning to manage surgical patients, basically people in varying degrees of health who…

  • Healthcare reform

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    With the recent victory of this administration in passing health care reform I felt it was time to talk again about the importance of this issue and some of my own experiences in the last year of my surgical training. I was, and still am of the belief that reform, whatever form it might take,…

  • This day in Crankery, November 16th

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    MarkH
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    So who here has actually read the health care bill?. I’ve been devoting a bit of time each week to peruse more and more of it, and while there are endless obstacles to a complete understanding of it (including legalese and the annoying tendency of legislation to contain edits to other bills without including the…

  • Surgical Internship

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    MarkH
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    You might have noticed I’ve been busy for the last couple of months. This is because I’ve started my surgical internship, and when not working, am usually either sleeping or eating. I’m going to endeavor to write more though, because I think important things are going on in the world, and because it’s somewhat therapeutic.…