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Goodbye and good riddance to organized quackery's best friend in CongressEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Here's a rare bit of good news on the regulatory front. It turns out that Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) has finally decided to retire: So Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) is finally retiring, after two decades in Congress. He's got a notable record of craziness, having doggedly pursued President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal while knowing full well he'd had an affair himself and even fathered a child out of wedlock. He famously claimed to have shot up a "head-like object" (likely a melon or a pumpkin) to try to re-create the alleged "murder" of former Clinton deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, who comm...
Source: Respectful Insolence - February 1, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

The annals of "I'm not anti-vaccine," part 9 (The first volley of 2012)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One of the most common retorts that antivaccine activists like to make, usually in the most wounded, self-righteous tone with the most wounded, disgusted expression on their faces that they can manage, is that they are "not antivaccine but rather pro-safe vaccine." There may be a tiny minority of antivaccinationists who really are "pro-safe vaccine," but if they exist I have yet to encounter one yet. In any case, what maes an antivaccinationist and antivaccinationist is an unrelenting hostility to and fear of vaccines, coupled with an even more unrelenting refusal to admit that vaccines do any good and ann amazingly slippe...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 31, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Thanks, CWRU, for forcing me to get the paper bag out againEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's rare that I have much in the way of reluctance to leap into writing about a topic. Any regular reader of this blog should know this to be true, given the topics I regularly take on and how often my writing draws flak my way from various proponents of quackery and pseudoscience, in particular the antivaccine crowd. Still, sometimes a topic gives me pause, although, I must admit, the reason is that blogging about it will bring embarrassment to me. Usually, I can overcome this reluctance, as I have done in discussing, for example, how my alma mater, the university from which I obtained both my undergraduate and graduate ...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 30, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Skepticism/critical thinking Source Type: blogs

comaEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
one of the curses of kalafong (hell) was that there was no neurosurgical service. this meant us mere general surgeons had to handle the many head injuries that came in. so, for example, when some guy decided to cave in the head of his so-called best friend with a five iron on the golf course because they had started with the nineteenth hole instead of the first, we ended up either dumping them in icu with a tube down the trachea to wait to see what happened or trying to turf them to a neurosurgeon that could actually operate them. it was far easier to dump them in icu. mind you, it was easier to turn lead into gold than to...
Source: other things amanzi - January 28, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Bongi Source Type: blogs

Of headaches and coughsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Once in a while I get a break from purely orthopedic stuff and wield a stethoscope as a “general practitioner”. I used to like the general medicine as a student... Read more »Read more of this POST by clicking this >>> Of headaches and coughs (Source: The Orthopedic Logbook)
Source: The Orthopedic Logbook - January 27, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Bonedoc Tags: Medicine chief complaint coughs doctors funny jokes medical physical examination monotony patient communication patients Source Type: blogs

Vaccines are "transhumanism" that subverts evolution?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In the more than a decade since I first discovered, to my shock, that there are actual people out there who not only don't believe that vaccines are safe despite overwhelming evidence that they are but in fact believe that they don't work and are dangerous, I thought I had seen every antivaccine argument out there. After all, I just wrote about the tactics and the tropes of the antivaccine movement in which I reviewed, well, the tactics and tropes of the antivaccine movement. One of the favorite (and therefore most commonly used) tropes of the anti-vaccine movement is that vaccines are somehow "unnatural." There are many v...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 27, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Still more evidence that Morgellons disease is most likely delusional parasitosis, 2012 editionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's been nearly a year since I last discussed a most unusual malady. Part of the reason is that the opportunity to discuss it hasn't occurred recently; usually I need some spark or incident to "inspire" me to write about something, and there just hasn't been any Morgellons news that's caught my eye since then. However, another part of the reason, I must admit, is that writing about this particular condition almost always brings sufferers out of the woodwork, castigating me the way antivaccinationists like to castigate me for challenging the scientific basis of their preferred pseudoscience. I catch enough hostility from t...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 26, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

evilEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
doctors can be naughty sometimes too. i suppose boredom can be fertile ground for all sorts of mischief and what speciality tends to leave plenty of room for boredom more than anasthetics, especially when you have to sit around with a stable patient while an orthopod labours through the night fixing all sorts of bones. the anesthetist in question was on call for the orthopedic list. the list tended to start at about four in the afternoon and go pretty much right through the night. by midnight it could be quite a challenge to maintain enthusiasm, unless of course you had something to keep your mind busy. after a few cases...
Source: other things amanzi - January 26, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Bongi Source Type: blogs

$#*! skeptics sayEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Ha! I must admit, I've said probably about 50% of these things at one time or another, maybe more: Hmmmm. Maybe I need to come up with new "shit." Oh, and, by the way, I've been mentioned on PZ's blog more times than I can remember over the last seven years. So there! (Oh, wait. Does that mean PZ won't ever mention me again. Never mind. I take it back.) Read the comments on this post... (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 25, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

If this is true, the Dutch must be drinking in lots of information!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
If there's one thing about homeopaths, it's that they're indefatigable in their dedication to their unique brand of pseudoscience. They're also endlessly protean in their ability to induce their explanations for how homeopathy is supposed to "work" to evolve into endless forms not so beautiful. If it's not the claim that "like cures like" is some sort of immutable law of nature or that diluting a remedy somehow makes it stronger, it's pivoting to the claim that water has "memory." If it's not that, then homeopaths and homeopathy apologists invoke quantum entanglement that somehow works at the macro level, that "nanocrystal...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 25, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Tactics and tropes of the antivaccine movementEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I've been an observer and student of the antivaccine movement for nearly a decade now, although my intensive education began almost seven years ago, in early 2005, not long after I started blogging. It was then that I first encountered several "luminaries" of the antivaccine movement both throughout the blogosphere and sometimes even commenting on my blog itself. I'm talking about "luminaries" such as J.B. Handley, who is the founder of Generation Rescue and was its leader and main spokesperson; that is, until he managed to recruit spokesmodel Jenny McCarthy to be its public face, and Dr. Jay Gordon, who, although he swear...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 24, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Dr. Francis Collins and "integrative oncology"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I was disturbed several months ago when I learned that the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, had agreed to be the keynote speaker at the Eight International Society for Integrative Oncology Conference in Cleveland, OH. I say "doubly" disturbed because it disturbed me that Francis Collins would agree to speak at such a function and, perhaps even more, because the host institution was Case Western Reserve University, the institution where I both completed my surgery residency and my PhD in Physiology and Biophysics. Sadly, it now appears that my old stomping grounds at University Hospitals has b...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 23, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Close call on rehabilitationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In the past, I work closely with rehabilitation physician in the course of treating my patients. Since I went into private practice in the province though the lack of a... Read more »Read more of this POST by clicking this >>> Close call on rehabilitation (Source: The Orthopedic Logbook)
Source: The Orthopedic Logbook - January 22, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Bonedoc Tags: Medicine Orthopedic practice patient complaints patients physical therapy rehabilitation sickness Source Type: blogs

More trouble for Dr. Stanislaw BurzynskiEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's a new year, but some topics remain the same. One of these is the case of the highly dubious cancer doctor named Stanislaw Burzynski who claims to have discovered anticancer compounds in the blood known as antineoplastons, conducts "clinical trials" for which he charges patients and whose results he are largely unpublished, and of late has started marketing a do-it-yourself "personalized gene-targeted cancer therapy" that--surprise! surprise!--almost always involves antineoplastons. More importantly, contrary to Dr. Burzynski's claim that he doesn't use chemotherapy and that his therapy is nontoxic, he does, and it isn...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 20, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

A black hole of antivaccine misinformationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Every so often, I come across a bit of antivaccine idiocy that's so amazingly idiotic, such a--shall we say?--target-rich environment that it's catnip to a cat. I just can't resist it, even when there are other topics and subjects out there that have backed up over the last few days and I want to cover. You'll see why in a minute. In this particular case the antivaccine lunacy comes in the form of a video that's been making the rounds amazingly quickly the anti-vaccine crankosphere since it was released yesterday. It comes to us courtesy of a nurse who calls herself "The Patriot Nurse," and it's a video entitled Why this n...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 19, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

The antivaccine movement: Unencumbered by factsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One of my complaints about academic medicine is that, all too often, its practitioners seem unwilling to take risks to combat the misinformation and lies of the antivaccine movement. So kudos are indicated for Dr. Claire McCarthy at Children's Hospital Boston for her blog post Unencumbered by facts: what upsets me most about the anti-vaccine movement. I see that, predictably, the antivaccine contingent has already begun to swoop down on her. She could use some pre-emptive tactical air support. Fly, my monkeys! Fly! :-) ADDENDUM: Oh, look. Dr. McCarthy's post is cross posted at The Huffington Post. Fly, fly, launch a pre-...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 18, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

The homeopathic treatment of burns: The ultimate in valuing symptomatic treatment over all elseEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I had been planning on either discussing a study or analyzing another cancer cure testimonial, but things have been (mostly) too serious around the ol' blog the last few days. What with depressing posts about the return of whooping cough thanks to antivaccine idiocy, more evidence that Andrew Wakefield is a despicable human being, and evidence that there are equally despicable ideas prevalent in "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), I was starting to enter one of my periodic periods of depression brought on by contemplating the sheer scope of human gullibility and stupidity. I needed a break, or at least somethin...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 18, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Does thinking make it so?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Last week, I wrote about how advocates of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or "integtrative medicine" (IM), having failed to demonstrate efficacy for the vast majority of the unscientific, anti-scientific, and/or pseudosciencitific treatment modalities, many based on prescientific concepts of how human physiology and disease work, have started trying to co-opt placebo effects as their own. In essence, given that the larger and better designed the study the more it is obvious that most CAM therapies do no better than placebo, CAM/IM advocates have decided to embrace their inner placebo and start touting the cl...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 17, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Whooping cough returns in MichiganEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The other day, I noted a contrast between certain parts of the developed world (namely, Europe) where, thanks to fears of the MMR vaccine stoked by Andrew Wakefield and the credulous and sensationalistic British press, MMR uptake rates have fallen and, predictably, measles incidence has skyrocketed, and the rest of the world, where polio is now on the verge of being eradicated, thanks to vaccination campaigns. It's evidence that the antivaccine movement, inspired by Andrew Wakefield and promoted by antivaccine groups like Generation Rescue, the National Vaccine Information Center, the Australian Vaccination Network, and Sa...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 16, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Andrew Wakefield: Recognized as the Great Science Fraud that he isEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In deciding to sue Brian Deer, Fiona Godlee, and the BMJ for Brian Deer's BMJ article about his scientific fraud a year ago, Andrew Wakefield was clearly grabbing for publicity, seeking to fire up his supporters (which he's largely succeeded in doing), and trying to make himself relevent again after the allegations published in the BMJ a year ago led to his further decline. Regarding making himself relevant again, I might caution Andy to be careful: He might just get what he wished for, just not in the way he wished it. After all, right before his lawsuit became public, Wakefield had already been listed by Medscape as the ...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 14, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

John Edwards To Undergo Surgery for Unspecified Heart ConditionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Former North Carolina senator and presidential candidate John Edwards (photo courtesy Wikipedia) Former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards is scheduled to undergo surgery next month for a heart condition described as “life-threatening.” Edwards is due to be tried on felony charges but the case has been postponed by Judge Catherine Eagles. (Source: Inside Surgery)
Source: Inside Surgery - January 13, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Editor Tags: Medical News Wire Catherine Eagles heart condition John Edwards surgery Source Type: blogs

Use of Board Test “Recalls” in Radiology RevealedEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The widespread use of American Board of Radiology test “recalls” has been revealed by Army Captain Matthew Webb. The controversial tactic, which involves test takers memorizing and then immediately recording examination questions for later distribution, is widespread and used at many prestigious institutions to increase pass rates. But, for some physicians and the American Board of Radiology, this constitutes cheating. Drs. Matthew Webb, Woodson Jones, Gary Becker, and Joseph Dieber comment. (Source: Inside Surgery)
Source: Inside Surgery - January 13, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Editor Tags: Medical News Wire American Board of Radiology Gary Becker Joseph Dieber Matthew Webb recalls test Woodson Jones Source Type: blogs

A one trick pony does his one trickEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's funny, but it's only been one week since I expressed extreme skepticism that that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post, had reformed itself. The reason, of course, was that HuffPo had announced that it was starting a science section. Even though on the surface it seemed that HuffPo was making the right moves, recruiting real scientists to blog for it, even asking Seth Mnookin to write an pro-vaccine article that was the very antithesis of the antivaccine idiocy that has run rampant at HuffPo from the very beginning and, with only rare interruptions, continuing during the nearly seven years that Aria...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 13, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Naturopaths vs. "stayin' alive"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
For all the good things about my life there are, there is one bad thing, and that was that I was born so that I reached high school age right at the height of the disco era. At least, that's the way I viewed it at the time because at the time, like many teenaged boys of that era, particularly in Detroit, I hated disco. Loathed it. Despised it. I used to draw cartoons in the back of my notebooks showing Robert Plant destroying disco records, and I was a card-carrying member of DREAD. Not for me were the Bee Gees, who were so huge during my sophomore and junior years in high school, although I do have to admit that, even at ...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 12, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

The antivaccine crankosphere rallies around its hero, and Brian Deer strikes backEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When I wrote last week about the latest legal thuggery against an opponent of antivaccine pseudoscience, this time by hero of the antivaccine movement, who sued investigative reporter Brian Deer for defamation, there was one thing about the case that confused me, one aspect that didn't add up to me. Part of it was why Wakefield sued Brian Deer over an article he wrote for the BMJ a year ago, although in retrospect it's become apparent to me that it was almost certainly because the statute of limitations for a libel action in Texas is one year. More importantly, the silence of the antivaccine movement in general and the pro...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 11, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

buff and turfEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
the concept of the buff and turf is common to all the disciplines of medicine. sometimes it works. sometimes it doesn't. the call came in, but i struggled to believe it. yet i had to go to casualties anyway. i mean how do you tell the casualty officer that you don't really believe anyone can survive a lion attack? lions are killing machines. any normal human being who gets attacked by a lion should have the decency to expire and maybe even be eaten. and here i was expected to believe the patient on the way had actually survived. the upside was that i would probably be home in about half an hour or so. that is ...
Source: other things amanzi - January 11, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Bongi Source Type: blogs

John Sotos, MD – Medical Historian and Abraham Lincoln BiographerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Where are you from? Quite possibly I was once younger than 18. I have vague memories of going to public school. It is equally possible, however, that those memories were implanted by a giant computer Matrix during time I spent in an ooze-filled vat, before taking the red pill. What did you major in in college and where did you go to school? I went to Dartmouth and did two majors, mathematics and chemistry, but basically lived in the computer center. As it turns out, our computer actually was part of a giant Matrix. Medical school and all subsequent medical training was at Johns Hopkins, winding up as a transplantation card...
Source: Inside Surgery - January 10, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Editor Tags: Interviews Abraham Lincoln MEN2 National Geographic Tad Lincoln William Taft Source Type: blogs

A profound misunderstanding of the significance of cranks in scienceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I've spent a lot of time over the years looking at cranks, examining crank science (i.e., pseudoscience), and trying to figure out how to inoculate people against crankery. Because I'm a physician, I tend to do it mostly in the realm of medicine by critically examining "alternative" medical claims and discussing the scientific basis of medicine, both with respect to those "alternative" claims and to more conventional medical claims. However, I don't limit my skepticism and critical thinking just to medicine, although lately I think that I've been "specializing" too much, almost totally forgetting that there are other varie...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 10, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Dr. Phil follows Dr. Oz's descent into psychic wooEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Will it never end? First we had "America's Doctor," Dr. Mehmet Oz, credulously featuring psychic medium scammer John Edward on his show last year. Sadly, but typically, Dr. Oz was completely taken in by Edward's cold readings, even the most transparent ones. Even if his previous shows featuring Joe Mercola and a faith healer weren't enough to convince you that Dr. Oz either has no critical thinking skills or does have them but doesn't care about anything but entertainment, bread and circuses, this one should have been. My readers have now told me today that it looks as though in 2012 Dr. Phil wants to get in on that hot ...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 9, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

CAM, placebos, and the new paternalismEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Three and a half years ago, I bought a new car. The reason why I mention this as a means of beginning this post is because that car had something I had never had in a car before, namely Sirius XM satellite radio preinstalled. Curious, I subscribed, and I now barely listen to regular radio anymore. A couple of years after I had bought the car, a new channel was added to the lineup, a channel called Radio Classics. I don't know how I discovered it, but I rapidly became hooked on what's commonly referred to as old time radio. Basically, that's classic radio of the sort that was broadcast between the 1920s until around 1962, w...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 9, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Last in, last out….Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I’ve always been strict about time. I make it a point to be on time whenever my presence is needed. Or I’m I don’t go to any appointment or meeting at... Read more »Read more of this POST by clicking this >>> Last in, last out…. (Source: The Orthopedic Logbook)
Source: The Orthopedic Logbook - January 9, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Bonedoc Tags: Medicine Orthopedic practice anesthesia anesthetist behavior specialist surgeon surgery Source Type: blogs

HuffPo now has a science section, and I remain skeptical that it changes anything.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's no secret that I've been highly critical of The Huffington Post, at least of its approach to science and medicine. In fact, it was a mere three weeks after Arianna Huffington launched her blog back in 2005 that I noticed something very distressing about it, namely that it had recruited someone who would later become and "old friend" (and punching bag) of the blog, Dr. Jay Gordon, as well as the mercury militia stalwart David Kirby, among others. As a result, antivaccination lunacy was running rampant on HuffPo, even in its infancy. Many, many, many more examples followed very quickly. More followed, with Robert F. Ken...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 6, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Legal thuggery, antivaccine edition, part 3: Andrew Wakefield rallying the troopsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I realize I've already written two posts about Andrew Wakefield suing investigative journalist Brian Deer, the first one pointing out how it's just another example of cranks trying to silence criticism not through producing good science to defend their views but rather through abusing legal process and starting frivolous libel suits, the second one pointing out a connection between Andrew Wakefield and Autism Trust USA that might indicate how Wakefield is getting cash to pay for this lawsuit. Through it all, I've asked one question: Why is Wakefield doing it? Well, as part of the legal complaint, Wakefield's attorney comp...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 6, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Legal thuggery, antivaccine edition, part 2: An interesting connectionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The plot thickens. Earlier, I discussed how disgraced, struck-off anti-vaccine physician Dr. Andrew Wakefield, deciding that being humiliated once by the courts in a libel action wasn't enough, has apparently decided to have another bite at the apple. Given that he was so thoroughly humiliated in the notoriously plaintiff-friendly (for libel cases, at least) British legal system, it beggars imagination that he or his attorneys would think that he has a prayer of prevailing in Texas, but sue Brian Deer Andrew Wakefield has done anyway. His legal complaint accuses investigative journalist Deer of libeling him in his article...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 5, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Legal thuggery, antivaccine edition: Andrew Wakefield sues Brian Deer, the BMJ, and Fiona GodleeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
If there's one thing that a crank, quack, pseudoscientist, or anti-vaccine propagandist doesn't like, it's having the light of day shined upon his activities. In fact, so much do they hate it that they have a distressing tendency to respond to science-based criticism not with science-based rebuttals (mainly because they can't given that they don't have any science to support them) but rather with legal threats. Sometimes these legal threats progress beyond just threats and into legal action, usually libel suits designed not to be compensated for damage to reputation but rather to intimidate and silence. We've seen it befor...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 5, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

I love it when you call me Big PharmaEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Finally, I think I've found this blog's theme song: As I've asked so many times before: Dammit! Where's all that filthy big pharma lucre I've been told by quacks, cranks, and antivaccinationists that I'm getting for toeing the big pharma line? After all, if I'm going to work so hard as a pharma shill, I gots ta get paid, yo. Come on, I still want to live the dream of sitting back in my sweatpants and sweatshirt behind a massive computer screen, pouring out anti-CAM screeds, and then waiting for all that cash money to roll in as I serve my corporate masters! Lord Draconis Zeneca knows. Wait? You mean it's not like tha...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 4, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Humor Source Type: blogs

Credulous reporting on placebo effects strikes againEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Let's face it. The vast majority of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or "integrative medicine" (IM) therapies are nothing more than placebo medicine. This should be so abundantly clear to readers who have followed this blog, Science-Based Medicine, and/or Neurologica Blog more than a few weeks that I shouldn't have to repeat it yet again, but I feel that it bears repeating today as an introduction to today's subject matter. CAM/IM is almost all placebo medicine, and placebos effects are poorly understood (or even misunderstood), even among physicians. It is this misunderstanding that has provided the opening ...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 4, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

the bee danceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
i have more than just a passing interest in bees. in fact i used to be somewhat of an amateur beekeeper and a semi-professional bee remover. it was a way to bring in a bit of extra money while slaving away in the salt mines we called the department of surgery. during those days i learned quite a lot about the bees. i found them very interesting. one of the interesting facts about bees is how the scouts convey to the rest of the hive where they can find nectar stores. you see the returning scout does a little dance when it returns to the hive. the dance is in the form of a figure of eight with the bee vibrating its body in...
Source: other things amanzi - January 4, 2012 Category: Surgeons Authors: Bongi Source Type: blogs

Combining energy woo with The SecretEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As hard as it to believe, it's 2012 now. (I know, I know, I say that pretty much every year.) I've also been on vacation for the last week, which makes getting back into the swing of things a bit difficult. For one thing, we seem to have suffered an infestation of particularly brain dead alt-med and antivaccine trolls that drove comment totals on some posts into the hundreds. I must admit, that was something I didn't expect between Christmas and New Years, when blogging and commenting are usually as slow as everything else outside of retail that time of year. I must admit, though, that it was actually fairly amusing, at le...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 3, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Which alt-med is which Republican candidate?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Best analogy ever? I think it's a contender, straight from Balloon Juice: The Republican party in Iowa reminds me of a patient with a terminal disease (Romneyitis) desperately turning to alternative medacine. They've cycled through homeopathy (Bachmann), naturopathy (Cain), chelation (Perry) and aromatherapy (Paul). Now they've hit the final frontier--urotherapy. I'm glad that I've never been so desperately ill that I've contemplated drinking my own piss, but I can imagine what it might feel like if I consider the level of desperation needed to vote for Rick Santorum. I must admit, I laughed out loud when I read the last...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 2, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Revisiting the question of "individualization" of treatments in "alternative" medicineEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I kind of miss Peter Lipson on ScienceBlogs and wish he were still around. I realize it's been nearly a year and a half since he departed, but it's been a bit lonely here being the only physician blogging about quackery, the role of science in medicine, and other skeptical topics related to medicine. This point was driven home when I happened to come across a post he wrote the other day entitled Another crack at medical cranks. In it, Dr. Lipson discusses one characteristic that allows medical cranks and quacks to attract patients, namely the ability to make patients feel wanted, cared for, and, often, happy. As I have sai...
Source: Respectful Insolence - January 2, 2012 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

At the top of the list of the worst doctors of 2011Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I know I said I'd probably chill this weekend and not post anything new until after New Years, but another thing showed up in my in box that--shall we say?--inspired me to post another quickie. It's Medscape's list of the Physicians of the Year: Best and Worst. It starts with the worst, and guess who shows up first? Andrew Wakefield, who is described thusly: Wakefield's MMR-Autism Vaccine Study an "Elaborate Fraud" In January, the BMJ published a series of 3 articles and editorials charging that the study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield (pictured above) and colleagues linking the childhood measles-mu...
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 31, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

One last example of crank magnetism for 2011Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
OK, I know I said that this morning's post would likely be the last post of 2011, but then--wouldn't you know it?--the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism had to go and post a post entitled AAPS on Vaccine Exemptions. I think it deserves a brief mention today for the simple reason that it's a perfect example of crank magnetism. It makes a lot of sense that Anne Dachel of AoA would be very impressed by the sorts of things that Dr. Jane Orient, the current president of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) because, well, the AAPS is a crank organization every bit as cranky as Generation Rescue, Safemind...
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 31, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

A "personal case" for homeopathy, part 2Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Given that this is the last weekday before the end of 2011 and this quite probably will be my last post of the year (that is, unless something so compelling pops up over the weekend that it tempts me more than I can resist), I wondered what would be a good topic. Then, readers started sending me a link to the perfect topic, and I agreed that it represents a loose end that I should try to take care of before the year is up. So take care of it I will. Right before Christmas, a homeopath named Judith Acosta, who bills herself as a "licensed psychotherapist, classical homeopath, and crisis counselor in private practice," wrot...
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 30, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

A young antivaccine propagandist developsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The other day, I pointed out that one of the characteristics of antivaccine cranks is how, no matter how much you press them, they will never, ever get specific about which vaccines they find acceptable. they'll go on ad nauseam about vaccines they despise and why, but will never admit that there are beneficial vaccines. When pressed about which vaccines should be included in the pediatric vaccination schedule, they'll spin and contort enough to bend the fabric of space-time rather than commit to admitting that a vaccine is safe and effective. Experienced antivaxers, of course, have a series of pat answers to this questio...
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 30, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Two examples of "antivaccine"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In the process of laying down a little of the ol' not-so-Respectful Insolence on the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), Barbara Loe Fisher, and Jenny McCarthy yesterday, I briefly discussed what the term "antivaccine" means. It's a topic I've discussed at length before and that Steve Novella recently wrote about. The long version is in the links, but the short version is that, unlike the "pharma shill gambit" favored by antivaccine activists and others who aren't too fond of science-based medicine (SBM), it's not just a convenient label for supporters of SBM like me to use to demonize opponents. Rather, it's an at...
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 29, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Jenny McCarthy plans to ring in 2012 with antivaccine propaganda on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's EveEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Here we go again. In fact, I think I'm starting to see a pattern here among antivaccine organizations. You might remember that in November 2010, the antivaccine group SafeMinds bought ad space in AMC Theaters over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, one of the heaviest moviegoing time periods of the year. This use of pre-movie time to promote antivaccine propaganda resulted in a campaign by skeptics to try to persuade AMC to see the error of its ways, a campaign that was successful. Then, a few months later, the the grande dame of the antivaccine movement, arguably the woman who started the most recent incarnation of that ...
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 28, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Antivaccination lunacy Source Type: blogs

On leaping to conclusions about a neurosurgeon and Dr. Stanislaw BurzynskiEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Another Christmas is over, and we're settling in to that strange week between Christmas and New Years when, or so it would seem, most of the world isn't working except for retail. I'm half taking the week off from work in that I don't plan on going into the office if I can possibly avoid it, but will be starting up a couple of grants for the February/March NIH cycle and dealing with a couple of nagging issues left over from before the holidays. Regular readers might have noticed that ScienceBlogs had a bit of a glitch beginning sometime in the early morning hours of Christmas morning and not ending until yesterday sometime...
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 27, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

Merry Christmas...one last timeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I can't believe I forgot to post this, particularly since I actually got to see Tim Minchin perform this song live three months ago. It was very, very good, and it's one of the best Christmas songs I've ever heard: Unfortunately, not being in Australia, drinking white wine in the sun appears not to be in the cards today. However, visiting family is. See you all next week. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 25, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Announcements Source Type: blogs

Happy Holidays to all!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Because there's only one way for Orac to wish his minions, shills, and fans a Merry Christmas: Well, maybe not. There's also this: Both via Skepchick. For those of you who celebrate the holidays, whatever they may be, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Festivus, or whatever, have a happy one. Be of good cheer. And, as our illustrious leader Lord Draconis would urge us, stay frosty, my friends. You will be needed. Orac shall return next week, and the the minions, shills, and flacks of pseudoscience, particularly antivaccine pseudoscience and quackery (for instance, in the comments after this article, where a homeopath ...
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 24, 2011 Category: Surgeons Tags: Announcements Source Type: blogs