Month: March 2010

Being Negative Is Not So Bad

A new study published in PLOS Biology looks at the potential magnitude and effect of publication bias in animal trials. Essentially, the authors conclude that there is a significant file-drawer effect – failure to publish negative studies – with animal studies and this impacts the translation of animal research to human clinical trials. SBM is greatly concerned with the technology of medical...

/ March 31, 2010

SBM Live Event – April 17th

A panels of bloggers from SBM will be taking part in the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism – NECSS 2010, April 17th beginning 10:00AM in New York. There will be a 70 minute panel discussion moderated by John Snyder and featuring David Gorski, Kimball Atwood, Val Jones, and myself – Steven Novella. The topic of discussion will be the infiltration of...

/ March 30, 2010

Genetic Testing for Patients on Coumadin

Anticoagulation is advised for patients who have had a blood clot or who are at increased risk of blood clots because of atrial fibrillation, artificial heart valves, or other conditions. Over 30 million prescriptions are written every year in the US for the anticoagulant warfarin, best known under the brand name Coumadin. Originally developed as a rat poison, warfarin has proved very...

/ March 30, 2010

“Vaccines didn’t save us” (a.k.a. “vaccines don’t work”): Intellectual dishonesty at its most naked

If there’s one thing about the anti-vaccine movement I’ve learned over the last several years, it’s that it’s almost completely immune to evidence, science, and reason. No matter how much evidence is arrayed against it, its spokespeople always finds a way to spin, distort, or misrepresent the evidence to combat it and not have to give up the concept that vaccines cause...

/ March 29, 2010

The case of John Lykoudis and peptic ulcer disease revisited: Crank or visionary?

One of the themes of SBM has been, since the very beginning, how the paradigm of evidence-based medicine discounts plausibility (or, perhaps more appropriately, implausibility) when evaluating whether or not a given therapy works. One of our favorite examples is homeopathy, a therapy that is so implausible on a strictly scientific basis that, for it to work, huge swaths of well-established science...

/ March 29, 2010

Brief Note: Followup on Spinal Decompression Machines

In September 2008 I wrote a post on Misleading Ads for Back Pain Treatment. with particular attention to the bogus claims for the DRX 9000. The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) show “Marketplace” has just done a scathing exposé of so-called nonsurgical spinal decompression treatment with machines like the DRX 9000 and of some of the unscrupulous practitioners who offer it.  Between the hidden...

/ March 28, 2010

H. Pylori, Plausibility, and Greek Tragedy: the Quirky Case of Dr. John Lykoudis

Mark Crislip is on vacation, but through an arduous series of shakings and succussions (beating his head against the wall?) we have channeled part of his essence: This post mostly concerns itself with infectious diseases, thanks to several recent posts on SBM that discussed the plausibility of health claims† and that touched on the recent discovery that most peptic ulcer disease (PUD)...

/ March 26, 2010

Vaccinations and autism: are we number 1?

It has been alleged by Great Minds such as Jenny McCarthy that the US recommends far more vaccinations than other countries.  Her precise statement was, “How come many other countries give their kids one-third as many shots as we do?” She put this into the context of wondering if our current vaccine schedule should be less rigid.  The entire piece was filled...

/ March 25, 2010

Placebo Effects Revisited

In the Wall Street Journal last week was a particularly bad article by Melinda Beck about acupuncture. While there was token skepticism (by Edzard Ernst, of course, who is the media’s go-to expert for CAM), the article credulously reported the marketing hype of acupuncture proponents. Toward the end of the article Beck admits that “some critics” claim that acupuncture provides nothing more...

/ March 24, 2010

A Sleep Remedy with Proprietary Secrets

A new product, Dream Water, is designed to help one relax, fall asleep and improve the quality of sleep using the all natural ingredients melatonin, GABA and 5-HTP (tryptophan). A single-dose 2.5 oz bottle retails for $2.99. They also offer a more dilute formulation in an 8 oz bottle. They suggest drinking half a bottle, keeping it at your bedside, and drinking...

/ March 23, 2010