October 23rd, 2009 by admin in Better Health Network, Quackery Exposed
Tags: Alternative Medicine, Complementary And Alternative Medicine, False Information, Flu, H1N1, Infectious Disease, Joseph Mercola, Pseudoscience, Public Health, Vaccines
No Comments »
By Dr. Joseph Albeitz
Some of our more astute readers may have noticed that we are paying influenza slightly more attention than other topics of late. That’s because this situation is new, rapidly changing, and covers more areas of science and medicine than one can easily count. It’s also a subject about which the general public and media are keenly interested. This is an outstanding learning and teaching opportunity for us as a professional community. Unfortunately, it is also fertile ground for confusion, fear, and misinformation, and a playground for those who would exploit such things.
Mercola.com is a horrible chimera of tabloid journalism, late-night infomercials, and amateur pre-scientific medicine, and is the primary web presence of Joseph Mercola. Unfortunately, it is also one of the more popular alternative medicine sites on the web and as such is uncommonly efficient at spreading misinformation. I am not a fan, and have addressed his dross in the past. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
October 23rd, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News
Tags: Addiction Medicine, Cigars, Fruit Flavors, Marketing, Pediatrics, smoking, smoking cessation, teens, Tobacco
No Comments »
Now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the power to regulate tobacco products we will see more meaningful moves to reduce the harmfulness and addictiveness of tobacco, as well as to reduce its addictiveness to young people. However, we should also expect the tobacco industry to respond by trying to find loopholes that help it get around these regulatory moves.
The first example is the ban on added flavors to cigarettes (which currently excludes menthol flavor, i.e. it is not banned automatically). Recently I’ve noticed an increased promotion of flavored cigars, often being sold as singles, in bright colorful packaging. The current FDA flavor regulation doesn’t ban fruit, candy and other flavors in cigars or smokeless tobacco, just cigarettes. Read more »
This post, Big Tobacco Now Marketing Fruit Flavored Cigars To Youth, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
October 23rd, 2009 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: Blogging, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Medblog, Medbloggers, Medical Blogging
No Comments »
It was a legitimate challenge.
When I mentioned to a fellow blogger that I was appearing on NPR, and he raised a very important question: ”Is that really a good thing? I thought that the point of blogging was to pose a challenge to the mainstream media, but it seems like bloggers feel like they have made it when that same media pays attention to them.”
This hits at the core of what I do as a blogger (and a podcaster). Why do I spend so much of my time doing something on that takes a bunch of time and energy, when I already have a very busy life? Why blog? Why podcast? Why do interviews? Why llamas? Why spend a weekend in Las Vegas? OK, the last question has any of a number of answers, and I have no idea about the llamas. But you get my drift: given the busyness of my life, why should I do all of this? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
October 22nd, 2009 by Jon LaPook, M.D. in Better Health Network, Celebrity Interviews, Humor, Video
Tags: Actor, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Hypochondria, Hypochondriac, Hypochondriasis, Psychiatry, Psychology, Susie Essman, Susie Green
1 Comment »
Susie Essman, aka Susie Greene of Larry David’s HBO program, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” has written a hilarious book (and yes, I actually read it) called What Would Susie Say?: Bullsh*t Wisdom About Love, Life and Comedy. For this week’s CBS Doc Dot Com, I talked to Susie about some of her health issues covered in the book, including menopause, fear of germs, and hypochondria. “So far this month,” she told me, “I’ve had Lyme disease, hysterical blindness, enlarged prostate….”
If any woman could actually have an enlarged prostate – either her own or snatched in a fit of pique from her beleaguered television husband played by Jeff Garlin – it would be Susie Green. But as we discussed her real and imagined symptoms, it became clear that Susie Essman can be easily talked down from her flashes of hypochondriacal thinking. So she doesn’t actually meet the official psychiatric definition of “hypochondriasis,” in which a misinterpretation of symptoms leads to a preoccupation with having a serious illness that interferes with daily functions and lasts at least six months despite reassurances from a doctor. In fact, her belief that she’s a hypochondriac is hypochondriacal. Read more »
October 22nd, 2009 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: EBM, Emergency Medicine, Evidence Based Medicine, Judgement
No Comments »
EM at its finest:
Ending a shift with a bang.
I write a nice note trying to capture the essence of what I did and why I did it. Can’t write “decided to go big or go home” so I wrap it up in that nice, sterile and intentionally understated medicalese which makes it seem like the decisions were clear cut, and based on solid information, when the truth is that they were largerly judgement calls based upon spotty and/or inaccurate information.
I sign out and then I punch out.
In EM we often don’t get to wait for the test result, or for a period of observation. Curse, and beauty, of the job.
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
