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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Politics

Dallas Buyers Club-inspired “right to try” laws: Good movies don’t make good policy

One of my favorite shows right now is True Detective, an HBO show in which two cops pursue a serial killer over the course of over 16 years. Starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, it’s an amazingly creepy show, and McConaughey is amazing at playing his character, Rustin Cohle. I’m sad that the show will […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Pediatricians versus the Dunning-Kruger effect on vaccines

I don’t know if I could be a pediatrician right now. True, I probably don’t have the personality to be a pediatrician, at least not a primary care pediatrician on the front lines. After all, if I did, I probably wouldn’t have become a surgeon, much less a hyperspecialized cancer surgeon. One reason (among many, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

Ontario dragoons pharmacists to test naturopaths about real medicines

I’ve mentioned before how Detroit is my hometown. What that means is that I live very near to Canada. In fact, I can go into Windsor pretty much any time I want to, although I don’t do it very often. Lots of Canadians work at the cancer center I work at because it’s only a […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Popular culture

It’s always the vaccines: Harold Ramis and autoimmune vasculitis

Last week, one of my favorite comedians and filmmakers of all time passed away unexpectedly. I’m referring, of course, to Harold Ramis, whose work ranged from movies like National Lampoon’s Animal House (the first R-rated movie I ever saw, actually), to gems like Ghostbusters and and Groundhog Day. In fact, in retrospect, when I posted […]