Backhanded celebration of homeopathy

It's homeopathic awareness week! Neurologica wants to take full advantage:

According to the British Homeopathic Association . . . June 14-21 is Homeopathy Awareness Week. I would like to do my part to increase awareness of homeopathy. . . I am all in favor of homeopathic awareness. The scientific community should use this week to make the public acutely aware of the fact that homeopathy is, put simply, utter rubbish. Neurologica has put together a detailed account of the world's most over-embellished version of the placebo effect. Consider the homeopathic advocates' arguments for why homeopathic drugs can't be tested:

Many homeopaths have argued that homeopathy cannot be subjected to the same type of studies as are conventional drugs. This is because each patient, from a homeopathic perspective, is unique, and cannot be lumped into a single category. Whereas conventional medicine can compare treatments of 1000 diabetics with two different medications, homeopaths cannot produce large numbers of patients with the same totality of illness requiring the exact same treatment. In making this argument, that of untestability, such homeopaths are securing their position in the halls of pseudoscience, for if their is one single quality which separates scientific theories from nonscientific ones, it is falsifiability. If homeopathic remedies cannot be tested, then they can never be grounded in science.

Neurologica's article is well written and well documented. I agree entirely.

Continue ReadingBackhanded celebration of homeopathy

Medicating the kids . . .

As a parent, I have participated in many discussions regarding the medication of kids for a variety of reasons. I have friends who have kids with serious problems for whom medication has been a godsend, allowing them to function with relative normalcy. Kids who were unable to participate in a typical classroom for one behavioral issue or another. We've also had many discussions about the problem of over-medicating children, and how some schools push for difficult children to receive behavioral meds, whether they truly need them or not. How some of those adult medications should perhaps not be so quickly prescribed for children. We've talked about education reform, changes in teaching methods and school culture and administrative philosophies that would allow for wider ranges of learning styles. I've heard parents rant about how unfair it is for their well-behaved child to not receive the same level of attention as the "problem kid" in the class commands, and I've seen them answered by the parents of said problem kids with an invitation to trade shoes, just for a day.

Continue ReadingMedicating the kids . . .

Robert Reich explains the “public option” re health insurance reform.

In this video at Bill Moyers' Journal, Bill Moyers and and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich rolled up their sleeves to discuss Barack Obama's objectives regarding national health care reform, including the (potentially feasible) "public option" and (not unlikely option of) "single payor." The bottom line: Barack Obama has an uphill struggle against some extremely powerful (monied) interests, including the private insurers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and other profit-driven corporations that have each hired fleets of lobbyists yelling "socialism." At the 14-minute mark, listen to Reich describe how the financial sector has "pulled the wool over the eyes" of the Obama Administration. He warns that the lobbyists are enormously powerful, and that we need Obama and average citizens to start standing up to the lobbyists. As things are, nothing has fundamentally changed regarding the financial system, other than the financial sector's new ability to paper over its scandalous practices and its ever-increasing massive transfer of wealth from America's middle class to the financial sector. In 1980, the top 1% of the country took home 9% of the total national income. By 2007, the top 1% was taking home 21% of the national purchasing power. Reich explains that the middle class has been drained of financial and government power. What has happened is that "capitalism has swallowed democracy." Reich explains that when the government fails to set boundaries, we have the law of the jungle, and we then have super-capitalism, which is capitalism without democracy. The culprits were the lobbyists who made sure that there was no effective regulation of the financial sector.

Continue ReadingRobert Reich explains the “public option” re health insurance reform.

Alternative medical “cures” flunk out en masse

According to the Associated Press, numerous alternative medical cures have now been tested by the U.S. government, at great cost, and almost none of them show any promise at all in controlled studies sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine:

Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do.

Continue ReadingAlternative medical “cures” flunk out en masse

Portable defibullator used on soccer field

There's no doubt that this soccer player received a jolt of electricity (you can see his foot jump at the 15 second mark). I'm still wondering about the accuracy of this on the fly diagnosis, however. Can a sports trainer really make such a quick yet accurate diagnosis as to whether an athlete needs the use of a defibrillator?

Continue ReadingPortable defibullator used on soccer field