Categories
Cancer Medicine Surgery

Fearing the beast’s return

Leave it to Dr. Charles to remind me of something that happened recently, albeit in a bit of a roundabout way. It’s something I would rather have forgotten, but, when you dedicate your life to battling the beast that cancer, it is something that is inevitable and something a doctor has to learn to deal […]

Categories
Medicine

Mothership question of the week

From our Seed overlords at the ScienceBlogs collective: Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why? While I’m not as down on this question as PZ is, I’m not quite sure how to answer. There are lots of […]

Categories
EneMan Humor Medicine News of the Weird

Going above and beyond (or below) the call of duty for medical research

I’ve heard of physicians using themselves as guinea pigs for their own research before, but this is ridiculous. Yesterday, my copy of General Surgery News arrived at my office. As I was whiffling through it to see if there were any articles worth reading, I came across a tale of a Japanese doctor who was […]

Categories
Autism Bioethics Medicine Quackery

While we’re on the topic of autism and vaccines: Andrew Wakefield is facing charges for unprofessional conduct

When it rains it pours, eh? While I happen to be on the topic of vaccines and autism again today, here’s a surprising story: Andrew Wakefield, the doctor behind the scare over a potential link between the MMR jab and autism in children, is to face four charges relating to unprofessional conduct at the General […]

Categories
Autism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Mercury and autism: Well, look at what the Geiers are up to now

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that it’s been a while since I’ve written a substantive post on the fear mongering and bad science that are used by activists to support the claim that mercury in the thimerosal used as preservatives in vaccines is the cause of an “autism epidemic.” The closest I’ve […]