December 10th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Medblogger Shout Outs, Research
3 Comments »
An interesting blog article from the folks at Compete came to my attention recently. Compete for those who don’t know is a fantastic analytics site to see how ANY website is doing in terms of popularity (number of visitors in a given time period). The basic data is free. For more in depth information, there’s a charge.
For example, for our practice’s website, here is the Compete data I pulled which is pretty accurate based on my own analytics information:
My nearest local competitor in terms of website popularity is the hospital, Fauquier Health System: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
January 5th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Tips
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More celebrities are giving medical advice these days.
Rahul Parikh explores the phenomenon in a recent piece from Slate, citing Lance Armstrong, Suzanne Somers, and Jenny McCarthy, among others.
But does their celebrity make them an authority in a given medical issue? Unfortunately, too many people think so, as following celebrity medical advice can be dangerous Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
December 28th, 2009 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion
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. . .or a spread in Playgirl.
Huh?
Orac has a nice essay today for your Christmas Eve reading about a USA Today article yesterday by Liz Szabo that called out celebrities for their pseudoscientific proclamations and advice entitled, “Are celebrities crossing the line on medical advice?”
So that’s where I came up with this thought: it would be great if some folks who talked science-based sense became celebrities so they’d at least have the same platform to counter people like Jenny McCarthy. On his comment thread, I suggested that we can only hope that Orac someday gets a movie deal and acquires the public celebrity that some of these jokers have. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
April 27th, 2009 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Humor, Quackery Exposed
2 Comments »
Somehow the medical community has missed a very important news Item. In her website goop.com (dang, I was going to go for that domain), movie star Gwyneth Paltrow weighed in on a very frightening medical subject.
Shampoo.
“A couple of years ago, I was asked to give a quote for a book concerning environmental toxins and their effects on our children.
“While I was reading up on the subject, I was seized with fear about what the research said. Foetuses, infants and toddlers are basically unable to metabolise toxins the way that adults are and we are constantly filling our environments with chemicals that may or may not be safe.
“The research is troubling; the incidence of diseases in children such as asthma, cancer and autism have shot up exponentially and many children we all know and love have been diagnosed with developmental issues like ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder].”
Apparently, she went on to point the finger at shampoo as a potential major problem in our society and raised a possible link between shampoo and childhood cancers. Now, I am not sure how one can use shampoo on the head of a foetus (or a fetus, for that matter), but we have to tip our hat to celebrities for bringing such associations to the forefront.
So I did a bit of science myself to assess the voracity of her claims. I too was seized with fear when I noted the following:
- All of the kids in my practice who have ADHD have used shampoo.
- All of the kids with cancer have also used shampoo.
- I used shampoo as a kid (but not as a fetus), and I have ADHD.
- The projection is that 100% of the people now using shampoo will die.
Whoa.
This really backs up my misgivings about shampoo. I have always wondered at the claims these so-called hair-care products make so boldly. Here are some examples of lies spread by the shampoo industry:
Clarifying shampoo – What are they claiming with this? Is there such thing as unclear hair? Do some people look as though they have a giant blob of hair-like substance on their head instead of many separate hairs? Does clarifying shampoo make each individual hair once again visible on these people?
pH Balanced – What is pH imbalance? Is it when the pH sometimes is so acidic that it burns your hair off? That would be terrifying if true.
Volumizing shampoo – I was not aware volumizing was a word (nor was my spell-check). This means that the shampoo volumes things. How can you volume something? Does each hair get a separate volume, or does the hair suddenly get very loud. Personally, I am afraid to open the bottles of these shampoos for fear of going deaf.
Shampoo for stressed hair – I have never thought about the emotional state of my hair. I was not aware that it worries about things. Perhaps it worries about being volumized or burned by non-pH balanced shampoos. Perhaps it worries about being put on a foetus. Does this type of shampoo contain a hair version of valium?
Vitalizing shampoo – At least vitalizing is actually a word, but would you really want vitalized hair? My dictionary defines this as “giving life and energy to.” Hair is dead, as we all know. Does this “hair resurrection” cause your hair to scream every time it is brushed or cut? Does it move about on your head independently? What if it decides it wants to become a mullet?? Thank you, but I prefer my hair dead.
Self-adjusting shampoo – Instead of the hair having independent action, this type of shampoo seems to have an intelligence of its own. How would it self-adjust? Does it have a computer chip embedded in it or does it somehow have sentience? How do we know if it will adjust in a way we want? It could adjust to pH imbalance or de-volumization, couldn’t it? What if this self-adjusting shampoo, which clearly has some degree of autonomy, gets ideas and causes other shampoos to break the shackles we humans put on it and forms a shampoo revolution? An even scarier thought is if a self-adjusting shampoo comes in contact with vitalized hair! What will happen then? Will they fight, or will they conspire against the shampooee?
Baby shampoo – What is the life-cycle of a shampoo? How do they find these baby shampoos and why would they steal them from their parents? This is probably what is causing the shampoos to become self-adjusting. I will say, shampoos do seem to multiply in our bathroom. We probably have 16 bottles of different kinds of shampoo in our shower right now. I just recently noticed some baby shampoo, but I thought my wife had just bought it. I see now that we should not let the bottles touch each other if we want to have room in our shower to bathe.
So you see, while Miss Paltrow’s fears about shampoo are clearly far short of the whole story, at least they bring attention to this frightening situation. Shampoo manufacturers are clearly in cahoots and have eyes on world domination. The condemnation of this celebrity’s claims by “scientists” are clearly a smoke-screen to keep us from noticing the obvious plans for the destruction of humanity.
No more shampoo for me!
Gotta go now. It’s time for my colon cleanse.
