Category: Medicine
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The Origin of HIV in the Americas
The mainstream media has been reporting on this paper (open access at PNAS) on the hunt for the origin of HIV in the Americas. The surprising result was the finding that HIV first came to the United States from Haiti (rather than the previous origin which was thought to be a flight attendant from Canada)…
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The Placebo effect, how significant is it?
Are placebo’s really effective? So asks Darshak Sanghavi in Slate, citing this study from 2001 that shows the placebo effect, compared to passive observation, to be relatively minor for improvements in pain or objective measures of health. This is an interesting topic, but unfortunately, a really bad article. Given how many alties love to stress…
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Toxins!
I’d love to see what the angry toxicologist thinks of this scary article from CNN Tests reveal high chemical levels in kids’ bodies. Michelle Hammond and Jeremiah Holland were intrigued when a friend at the Oakland Tribune asked them and their two young children to take part in a cutting-edge study to measure the industrial…
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Another monkey put in charge of the zoo
WaPo reports on the appointment of Susan Orr: The Bush administration again has appointed a chief of family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who has been critical of contraception. Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children and Families, was appointed Monday to be acting deputy…
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The Road to Sildenafil – A history of artifical erections
The inability to achieve erection has been a source of consternation for men for, well, a really long time. But the recent history of treatments for impotence, wait, I mean Erectile Dysfunction, oh no, now they’re calling it Male Sexual Dysfunction, represents a medical revolution. In the last 100 or so years, we’ve gone from…
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Obesity – Primary vs. Secondary prevention
I will never forget the very first patient history I ever took. Part of medical school training is they send you onto the wards to gather patient histories and physicals so you learn to gather information effectively as a clinician. My first patient history was on a woman about 35 years old on the orthopedics…
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Two articles on building immunity in kids
The first from the NYT discusses the fallacy that childhood illness somehow builds up the immune system making them healthier adults. Rather, it emphasizes correctly, that exposure to lots of harmless antigens seems to be the key to making kids less susceptible to asthma and allergies, not exposure to harmful ones. In other words, let…
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Breast Cancer Crankery From Mike Adams
The latest crankery from Adams is the evil male-chauvinist conspiracy to perpetuate breast cancer for fun and profit being led by none other than those dastardly villains of the American Cancer Society. With his stunning report and links to the thinkbeforeyoupink campaign, he rails against the ribbons that are a “symbol of male-dominated control over…
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A Critical Appraisal of “Chronic Lyme” in the NEJM
The New England Journal has an article on the phenomenon known as chronic Lyme disease. Lyme disease, is a tick-borne infectious disease caused by an bacterium known as Borrelia burgdorferi carried by ticks in certain regions of the United States and Europe in which it is endemic. Here is the US map of cases below.…
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Two Court Decisions for Science
There have been two interesting court decisions, I think both decided correctly for science this week. In the first, a federal court has decided states may regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. In particular, one statement from the judge seemed to come straight from the deck of cards. “There is no question that the GHG…