medicine
ejohnson | September 3, 2009
As David Dobbs reports on Neuron Culture, the use of antidepressants in the US has nearly doubled in the last decade. David agrees with fellow neuroblogger Neuroskeptic in attributing the increase to a broadened definition of depression. But if Americans are becoming more depressed, there is hope on the other side of the coin as scientists turn up new insights into what makes us happy. On The Frontal Cortex, Jonah Lehrer tell us money can buy us happiness—but only if spent properly. Dave Munger of Cognitive Daily discusses a study in Psychological Science that demonstrates how our perception…
j7uy5 | September 3, 2009The odd thing about the Pfizer story is that it is old news.
Fierce Pharma
href="http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/pfizer-takes-2-3b-bextra-charge/2009-01-26">wrote
about it on 26 January 2009, and Neuron Culture
href="http://scienceblogs.com/neuronculture/2009/01/pfizer_takes_23b_bextra_charge.php">posted
about it, on 27 January 2009. Yet it just appeared in the New
York Times:
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/business/03health.html?sq=pfizer&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=print">Pfizer
Pays $2.3 Billion to Settle Marketing Case
By GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON --…
hrynyshyn | September 3, 2009While most media commentators obsess over the "news" that Diane Sawyer will be replacing Charlie Gibson on ABC World News, there are at least some observers who remain more concerned with content. The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne weighs in this morning on the sensationalism that has dominated coverage of public participation in the health care insurance reform debate. What we learn about the role of television is not surprising, but it does help remind us why things are going the way they are:
The most disturbing account came from Rep. David Price of North Carolina, who spoke with a stringer…
grrlscientist | September 2, 2009tags: canada, health care, human rights, streaming video
This video consists of a series of interviews with real Canadians. They discuss the realities of their single payer health care system, and are offended by the American right wing's insulting it.
This video made me deeply angry: in America, health care is obviously not a human right. In America, people like me -- whose health, credit rating, ability to find employment and financial future have been severely compromised due to a lack of health care -- deserve our situations, right? After all, things like this don't happen to real…
palmd | September 2, 2009Influenza kills somewhere around 36,000 Americans every year (and perhaps twice that number, depending on the estimate). The novel A H1N1 ("swine") flu circulating this year has found a world population with little natural immunity (at least those of us under 65---older folks may have some immunity from previous pandemics). The attack rate is ridiculously high, but the virulence is thankfully not much worse than other seasonal influenza. Unfortunately, the virulence doesn't have to be higher to increase the total number of hospitalizations and deaths.
Now, here's what won't help:…
jstemwedel | September 2, 2009In my university mailbox yesterday I received a memo detailing measures to help prevent the spread of flu (whether seasonal or novel H1N1).
The memo had the usual good advice: recognize flu symptoms, stay home if you have them so as not to spread it to everyone else, cover your coughs and sneezes, wash your hands, don't touch your eyes, nose, and mouth.
It also had some information that may not seem so obvious. For example, you ought to stay home at least 24 hours after you no longer have a fever (of 100 oF/38 oC), and that using a medication that reduces fever masks whether you still have…
oracknows | September 2, 2009I've been a bad, bad boy. In particular, I've been a bad, bad host in that I totally forgot to hawk the last Skeptics' Circle back on August 27, nearly a week ago.
So, please, go make up for my horrific error and visit The 118 Skeptics' Circle: Looking Closely Edition (if that link doesn't work, try http://evolvingmind.info/blog/2009/08/the-118-skeptics%E2%80%99-circle-looking-closely-edition). Now. Peruse the skeptical bloggy goodness that is there.
Hmmm. I wonder if too many toxins have built up in my bloodstream and are causing incipient Alzheimer's disease. Maybe I need some chelation and…
palmd | September 2, 2009Weigh in this morning: 205 lbs. Still looking asymptotic, but decreasing. Yea!
I had some stress-related over-eating, which isn't (obviously) a good coping mechanism, but in general, I'm doing better.
ddobbs | September 2, 2009On the radar of late:
Neuroskeptic ponders reports that antidepressant use in the U.S. has doubled in the last decade. As he notes, perhaps the most troubling thing finding in the study is that
the number of Americans using an antipsychotic as well as an antidepressant increased by a factor of more than 3. This is, frankly, extremely troubling, since antipsychotics are by far the worst psychiatric drugs in terms of side effects. There is evidence that some antipsychotics can be of use in depression as an add-on to antidepressants, but there is better evidence for other alternatives, such as…
oracknows | September 1, 2009For a change of pace, I want to step back from medicine for this post, although, as you will see (I hope), the study I'm going to discuss has a great deal of relevance to the topics covered regularly on this blog. One of the most frustrating aspects of being a skeptic and championing critical thinking, science, and science-based medicine is just how unyielding belief in pseudscience is. Whatever realm of science in which there is pseudoscience Orac happens to wander into, he find beliefs that simply will not yield to science or reason. Whether it be creationism, quackery such as homeopathy,…
ddobbs | September 1, 2009After a rather intense two months of long-form work, I'm so far behind on blogging I don't know where to start. Forget the last two months and move on? Probably the best move. But beforehand, I want to note a few developments along major lines of interest. I'll start with PTSD.
Amid the stagnation on combat PTSD, the summer brought news of new programs from the UK and US militaries aimed to answer the call for more effective treatment for rising rates reported in vets of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mind Hacks was one of several blogs to report and comment on a new Royal Marine program…
palmd | August 31, 2009For the last five hundred years, white America has feared black America. When physical chains were broken, the fear only increased. Rumors of black on white atrocities frequently circulate in white communities that live on the edge of black communities. As my home town integrated, rumors of white women being raped weren't uncommon. One particularly tenacious rumor had it that a white boy had been castrated by a group of black men at a local mall.
All of these rumors were, of course, untrue, and served as both a barometer of fear, and a tool of control. If fear could be maintained,…
palmd | August 31, 2009So, I cheated as usual over the weekend, but not as badly as I might have. I had a seriously awesome bike ride with my kiddo. And today, I'm not terribly hungry.
I'm finding that certain things just whet my appetite. One of the drawers in the office has a bad of mini chocolate bars. I can't do it. If I have one, I'll eat the whole bag, which in addition to making me feel shitty will piss off my secretary.
So I'll go pick up a chicken ceasar (oil and vinegar) on my way back to work, and enjoy the belt-tightening.
oracknows | August 31, 2009Last Thursday, I expressed dismay about an upcoming NBC news special, A Dose of Controversy, which is about a man who arguably caused more damage to public health than just about anyone in the last decade, namely Andrew Wakefield. Anyone who's a regular reader of this blog knows just what I think of Andrew Wakefield. I've made no secret of it; I have little but contempt for the man, whom I view as incompetent, dishonest, and a quack. Andrew Wakefield, as you may recall, is the British gastroenterologist who in 1998 published a study in The Lancet that claimed to find a link between the MMR…
razib | August 30, 2009Interesting review paper on disease and Sub-Saharan African, Neglected Tropical Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa: Review of Their Prevalence, Distribution, and Disease Burden:
The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are the most common conditions affecting the poorest 500 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and together produce a burden of disease that may be equivalent to up to one-half of SSA's malaria disease burden and more than double that caused by tuberculosis. Approximately 85% of the NTD disease burden results from helminth infections. Hookworm infection occurs in almost…
palmd | August 30, 2009China's a communist country, totally different from the capitalist U.S., right? They probably have some sort of socialized health system that makes Canada look downright libertarian. Right?
No.
I was talking to a friend (who I'll call "Pu") this week. She was surprised that I had to bend over backward to get someone insulin.
Pu: "In China, this would never happen."
Pal: "Really? You mean because the State would take care of it?"
Pu: "No. In China, you pay a deposit for your care, and have to pay as you go, or that's it. Can't afford insulin? Tough. Go home and die."
Hmmm...socialist…
palmd | August 30, 2009From time to time we see an article (usually from LA) about hospital patients being "dumped" on street corners. I don't know how wide-spread this problem is, but the systemic problem that leads to this is common and serious.
Most American hospitals are required to render emergency care to anyone who comes in the door. In practice, this means hospitals provide a great deal of uncompensated care. For example, if some guy with a couple of bullet holes is dumped in front of the ER by his "friends", the hospital is required to stabilize him. But let's say they then wish to transfer his care…
palmd | August 28, 2009Here in the northern hemisphere, flu season generally starts in the fall and rapidly falls off at the end of winter. This past flu season, we had a "two-fer", with an initial dip in cases, followed by a spike in new cases attributable to the novel H1N1 ("swine") flu that emerged late last year.
The bimodal flu season of 2008-09
This is my first pandemic, and it's been fascinating. The sudden drop in cases at the beginning of summer was matched with a sudden increase in cases in summer camps and military installations. The high attack rate is particularly dramatic, although the…
oracknows | August 28, 2009It really and truly saddens me to have to do this.
The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto is one of the finest children's hospitals there is. Unfortunately, as I documented yesterday, the hospital has, either knowingly or unknowingly, lent its good name to the metastasis of the quackfest known as Autism One from its primary site in Chicago to a metastatic deposit sullying one of the finest cities in our fair neighbor to the north, Toronto. The metastasis is a secondary quackfest known as Autism One Canada, and, unfortunately, the SickKids Foundation and the Dalla Lana School of Public…