Category: Science and Medicine

Side effects may include liver failure

“Safe and natural.” It’s a marketing phrase attached to dietary supplements that’s often accepted as self-evident. The marketing works. Supplements have a strong health halo. But evidence suggests that this reputation may be undeserved. Not only are there continued questions about whether most supplements have any health benefits whatsoever, there is also evidence that they can be harmful. We can’t even be...

/ September 11, 2014

Ebola SCAMs

Ebola, like all diseases, is an opportunity for some to offer up curious treatments. Here is a brief budget of Ebola-related SCAM (supplements, complementary and alternative medicine) and a few Dug the Dog digressions. Homeopathy Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned. ~ Emile Durkheim. Homeopath? In its classic form, as promulgated by Hahnemann,...

/ September 5, 2014

CAM and Headaches

A recent editorial entitled “CAM in the Real World: You May Practice Evidence-Based Medicine, But Your Patients Don’t” published in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain by Robert Cowan, a headache specialist, addresses the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the treatment of headaches. Unfortunately he propagates many common misconceptions about CAM in the article. I do agree...

/ September 3, 2014

A Touch to Fear: Chiropractic and the Newborn Baby

A significant part of my job as a pediatric hospitalist involves caring for newborns. It is arguably the best thing that I get to do as a physician, even if I do at times prefer the increased intellectual stimulation of the ill hospitalized child. While seeing newborns, I am almost always surrounded by happy and appreciative parents, grandparents and whoever else is...

/ August 29, 2014

Bad Science Journals

It’s an excellent business model. The only real infrastructure you need is a website, and you can have a custom site made for $5-10 thousand. Then you just have the monthly bandwidth charges. The rest is just e-marketing, which can be done for free, or the cost of some e-mails lists. After that, the money just comes rolling in. The best part...

/ August 27, 2014

That’s so Chiropractic

Old bad studies: Fantastical autopsy results I found the following quote at “Chiropractic care can treat more than just bad backs” (FYI. Chiropractic can’t): Luse references a study published in The Medical Times authored by Dr. Henry Windsor [sic], M.D. that showcases the correlation of spinal health to overall wellness. Windsor dissected 75 human cadavers to investigate their causes of death. The...

/ August 22, 2014

Vitamin K Refusal – The New Anti-Vax

A small but increasing number of parents are refusing vitamin K injections for their newborns, an intervention recommended since 1961. This is yet another example of the difference between a science-based and philosophy-based approach to medicine. Science has given us the tool of knowledge, and in medicine that knowledge can have very practical applications. The term “vitamin” was coined in 1912 by...

/ August 20, 2014

Separating Fact from Fiction in Pediatric Medicine: Nocturnal Enuresis

Nocturnal enuresis, more commonly known as bedwetting, is a normal problem that resolves on its own for most children. Chiropractors claim they can treat it. They can't, but they will take the credit for kids doing it themselves.

/ August 15, 2014

Lemons and Lyme: Bogus tests and dangerous treatments of the Lyme-literati

It’s that time of year when every day I can expect to see at least one patient with a concern about Lyme disease. In Lyme-endemic regions such as Western Massachusetts, where I practice pediatrics, summer brings a steady stream of children to my office with either the classic Lyme rash (erythema chronicum migrans, or ECM), an embedded tick, a history of a...

/ July 18, 2014

NuVet: Pet Supplement Snake Oil

I’m a dog person. I always wanted a dog as a child, and while my extended family all had dogs, we never had one in our home. I finally got my wish just over a decade ago. My wife and I were referred to a breeder with an excellent reputation for raising healthy, family-friendly Labrador Retrievers. Within moments of meeting a tiny...

/ July 17, 2014