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Remember the Zicam debacle? To catch you up, Zicam has been promoted for years as a "homeopathic cold remedy". It is of course neither. Since it contains measurable amounts of zinc, it isn't "homeopathic", and since there is no cure for the common cold, it's not a remedy. In addition to having ...
Medicine
Today, the 21st annual World AIDS day, comes at a time when AIDS has become an everyday fact of life. Conservative estimates have over 33 million people living with HIV world-wide with an adult prevalence of 0.8%. This is a common disease, but its distribution is unequal. Due in part to ...
Medicine
In medicine we use all of our senses to evaluate patients. If I open up an abscess and I'm overwhelmed by the smell of rotted cheese, I can be pretty sure the abscess started as a sebaceous cyst. If I hear a "whooshing" sound over the abdomen in a smoker, I look more closely for an aortic ...
Medicine
The struggle to promote the scientific practice of medicine and the fight against pseudo-science and quackery just got a big boost. The newly-announced (but long in the making) Institute for Science in Medicine was launched this morning with an inaugural press release calling attention to ...
Medicine
I have in front of me a weathered copy of Cecil's Textbook of Medicine from 1947. It belonged to my father, who graduated from medical school in the 1940s. Even then, it was known that pneumoccus, a common bacterium, can live harmlessly in the nose and throat and only sometimes causes disease. ...
Medicine
A news item this week profiles a northeast naturopath who is using thermal imaging to screen for breast cancers. This is a frightening development. The news about conflicting mammogram recommendations has women wondering what the right approach really is. The question in the new USPSTF ...
Medicine
I live about ten miles due north of "Canada's automotive capital". We often look across the straights to the medical system in Ontario, one in which all citizens have a provincial insurance card. We see how everyone has access to care---or at least some care. I've treated many Canadian patients ...
Medicine
We already know about the Huffington Post's war on science and its shameless publication of snake oil ads disguised as journalism . Now, Mark Hyman, an evangelist for the cult known as "functional medicine" , is giving even more bad flu advice (and shilling for his books).
He begins his ...
Medicine
Those of you who gave to DonorsChoose will find an email in your inbox with a gift card. This is free money for you to donate to any project you wish . It represents matching funds from Hewlett-Packard, so don't let it go to waste.
Next, commenting. I keep a very open comment policy, since ...
Medicine
One of the most frightening symptoms of advanced cancer is "cachexia", or severe, unintentional weight-loss and wasting. It's a terrible prognostic sign, and the only truly effective treatment is removal of the cancer. Treatment of this syndrome has the potential to improve quality of life in ...
Medicine
Today over at Science-Based Medicine, Dr. Novella has a review of the so-called "biomed" movement in autism treatment. Anyone should be able to understand the desperation of parents with sick kids, but grief can lead to very bad decisions. As physicians, one of our jobs is to guide people away ...
Medicine
The latest Skeptics' Circle is up at Beyond the Short Coat . The Giants' Shoulders #17 is also up at scibling Eric Michael Johnson's place. Go and read!\ Read the comments on this post...
Medicine
Opponents of science-based medicine like to accuse the rest of us of failing to be "holisitc", of failing to see the whole individual who comes to us for health care. I've argued many times that this is not only wrong, but that so-called alternative docs, by recommending unproven treatments and ...
Medicine
In November, the citizens of my home state approved a medical marijuana law . The very next day, I started getting calls from patients (often not may own) asking how they could get it. I'm not fan of draconian laws that imprison people for getting stoned, but when it comes to medical ...
Medicine
Basing medical practice on science helps us avoid the pitfalls of relying on our own reasoning and experience. If I want to start a patient on a new medicine, the individual characteristics of the patient are important (Is the drug meant for their condition? Will it interact with other drugs ...
Medicine
There are a couple of quotes circulating widely claiming that major players in flu vaccine development are "denouncing" the vaccine.
From (shudder!) mercola.com:
"Dr. Anthony Morris, a distinguished virologist and former Chief Vaccine Office at the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA), ...
Medicine
In a piece written for health reporters, journalist Jane Allen gives some useful advice about covering alternative medicine, but there are some gaps that are are hard for a non-medical professional to recognize (and frankly, for many medical professionals as well). She quite rightly ...
Medicine
Hat tip to the incomparable, contentious, pain-in-the-ass-who-we-are-all-better-for-having-around scienceblogs regular becca for pointing out this site (from google of course) that helps locate flu shots in your area (in my area, everyone is "temporarily out of stock"). While you're visiting, ...
Medicine
Swine Flu
An easy way to kill a debate on health care policy is to use the "R" word. We saw this early in the HCR debate with overheated talk of "death panels" and other nonsense. But we ignore the real issue of rationing at our own peril. Those of us who favor real HCR must embrace rationing, coopt it, ...
Medicine
The resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases is a fascinating, if unwanted, phenomenon. Pertussis, measles, and now mumps are cropping up after long periods of quiescence. Mumps has been generally very well-controlled since the adoption of wide-spread vaccination, with no nation-wide ...
