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Cancer Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Peter Duesberg, chromosomal chaos, and cancer: An intriguing hypothesis argued poorly

A lot of readers (well, a couple, anyway) have been asking me about the recent article by Peter Duesberg in the most recent issue of Scientific American entitled Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer. I suppose it’s because I’m not only a cancer surgeon (which in and of itself is not enough to qualify me to comment […]

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Cancer Medicine

Early detection of cancer, part 3: Computer-aided degradation of screening mammography

It figures. On the very day that I posted a rather long post about a series of three papers discussing the use of mammography and MRI for screening women for breast cancer, there would have to be another paper relevant to the topic of the early detection of cancer, again in this case breast cancer. […]

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Cancer Medicine Surgery

Early detection of cancer, part 2: Breast cancer and the never-ending confusion over screening

[Note: If you haven’t already, you should read PART 1 of this two-part series. It defines several terms that I will be using in this post, and I don’t plan on explaining them again, given that they were explained in detail in Part 1. Of course, if you’re a medical professional and already know what […]

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Cancer Medicine Surgery

Early detection of cancer, part 1: More complex than you think

In the course of a few days last week, two prominent political personalities from different parties, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards, announced that their cancers (breast cancer in the case of Edwards and colon cancer in the case of Snow), after having apparently been […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Friday Woo Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Feedback loops, reproductive cells, cancer, and design

It is with some trepidation that I approach the latest target of Your Friday Dose of Woo. No, it’s not because the woo is so potent that it has actually struck the fear of You-Know-Who in me (I leave it up to readers to determine whether I was referring to God or Valdemort), although it […]