Categories
Cancer Medicine Politics

The costs and benefits of the latest, greatest cancer drugs

I’m currently in Las Vegas anxiously waiting for The Amazing Meeting to start. Believe it or not, I’ll even be on a panel! While I’m gone, I’ll probably manage to do a new post or two, but, in the meantime, while I’m away communing with fellow skeptics at TAM7, I’ll be reposting some Classic Insolence […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Oh, no! Orac the “Scientific Fundamentalist” has been too insolent!

Last week, I wrote about how Senator Tom Harkin is up to his old shenanigans again, trying at ever turn to do for the actual practice of quackery what he did for the research of quackery by creating the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and what he still does to promote quackery […]

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Cancer Entertainment/culture Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Television

CBS News’ resident anti-vaccine propagandist Sharyl Attkisson dives into breast cancer crankery

Remember Sharyl Attkisson? She’s the CBS reporter who can really bring home the crazy when it comes to vaccines and autism, laying down some serious crankery (complete with many logical fallacies) and hit pieces on Dr. Paul Offit. Indeed, at times she gives Mike Adams a run for his money when it comes to laying […]

Categories
Biology Cancer Medicine Politics Science

Are we playing it too safe in cancer research?

A couple of weeks ago, NEWSWEEK science columnist Sharon Begley wrote an article entitled From Bench To Bedside: Academia slows the search for cures. It was a rather poorly argued bit of polemic, backed up only with anecdotes that came across as sour grapes by scientists whose grant proposals the NIH had decided not to […]

Categories
Cancer Computers and social media Medicine

What’s wrong with Steve Jobs: Yes, Jobs did have a liver transplant, but was it for metastatic insulinoma?

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the reason for Apple CEO Steve Job’s five month medical leave of absence from Apple is that he needed a liver transplant, which, according to the story, he underwent a couple of months ago in Memphis. In my discussion, I assumed, for the most part, the […]