Posts Tagged medicine

Sources for medical information for non-medics and non-scientists Grant Jacobs Mar 18

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A recent up-swing locally in credulous claims about vaccines and the diseases they address has prompted me to list a small number of resources that I have found to have readable explanations of medical information for non-medics and non-scientists.

My lists are not complete or “definitive”, nor do I claim to be some authority on things medical. I’m just sharing a few sites I have used in the hope that they are useful for others who want find medical information. I have not listed sites that deal with medicines per se; these sites are focused on diseases.

Don’t forget that your best source of information is your registered medical practitioner.

(I emphasise registered medical practitioner to distinguish them from those offering “natural remedies” and those whose style themselves as doctors but are not in fact registered practitioners.)

Useful medical information websites

Others are welcome to recommend other sites in the comments below. The links are on the title of the sources.

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Medical DIY… Grant Jacobs Mar 18

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You know how the classic scene goes. Naïve ambitious husband describes his Do-It-Yourself plans… and “skills.” Wife stands there, wordless, with ever-widening eyes forecasting a disaster.

(Source: Wikipedia.)

(Source: Wikipedia.)

That’s how precisely researchers and medics feel watching non-medics and non-scientists determined to “do it their way” on things that affect others’ lives.

Sure, a few will genuinely do well. A rare few.

Most really should be honest and admit they haven’t the skills, or, realistically, the time to be good at it.

Civilisations are built on an acceptance of division of labour. Builders know how to build sound structures so that your house doesn’t crash around your ears in a storm. Electricians know how to wire things up without zapping everyone to kingdom come. Plumbers know how to fit pipes that don’t create a lake in your living room. (Well, most of the time!) GPs know how to diagnose and treat the more frequent disorders, and a few besides (but they refer to specialists to for things out of the ordinary; they know when to pass the buck onto the better (wo)man).

Don’t fight it. Division of labour is there to get the best out of each area of knowledge.

Fighting it and trying to “do it yourself” without the training and experience is like the household DIY thing: maybe OK for very minor things; dodgy for even modest things; and downright silly for everything else.

You or your family’s health is worth a bit more than DIY set of shelves or light fitting, right?

Anyone who claims that in a few hours or weeks or even months of study they are able to speak more authoritatively than someone who has spent years (or decades) of full-time study on a subject has got to be kidding themselves.

This isn’t just about medical research. It applies to everything. Building, electronics, cooking fine cuisine, motor mechanic, competitive sport, whatever.

Don’t be a DIY idiot.

Footnote

Just in case anyone gets the wrong idea, this is not trying “bash” anyone! I’m just trying to express the feeling of watching people try their hand at something they haven’t the background to do.

This was written thinking of those people trying to “out research” the medical and medical research community. It’s go0d to see people trying to learn, but until they are at comparable level and have gotten past the “goofy error” stage (let’s admit it, we all made goofy errors early on in whatever we’re now good at!) it’d be wiser to rely on those with experience and training.

Other recent articles on Code for life:

Simon Singh, leaving job to deal with chiropractic legal case

Molecular biology in museums

An horrific case of natural health treatment of cancer

The inheritance of face recognition, or should you blame your parents if you can’t recognise faces?

Homeopathy check-up: Not in the health system, disclaimers on labels

Deleting a gene can turn an ovary into a testis in adult mammals

Simon Singh, leaving job to deal with chiropractic legal case Grant Jacobs Mar 13

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Science writer and journalist Simon Singh, who faces a libel suit from the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for writing that a number of chiropractic claims of treatment of disorders unrelated to the spinal cord such as asthma were “bogus” has written in his column that it will be the last. He is resigning his job in order to give the libel suit the BCA has served on him full attention.

Simon Singh (Source: wikipedia)

Simon Singh (Source: wikipedia)

I recently pointed out an extensive review of the evidence for and against chiropractic treatment that showed that the claims that Singh objected as unsupported, are unsupported.

Another survey of the research literature for chiropractic treatments, that of Ernst (available free from the British Medical Journal), has an extensive collection of follow-on letters. The author, replying to the early letters, points out that neither his article nor the libel case are about safety; in moving onto safety in his reply, he concludes: “Applying the precautionary principle, one should therefore not recommend chiropractic but warn patients not to use this form of therapy.”

Surely any sincere business would respond by simply pointing to evidence backing their original claims. Not so the BCA. The BCA was offered an opportunity to write a rebuttal in the Guardian (the newspaper that published Singh’s original article), but declined, seemingly preferring to legally bludgeon the writer, rather than reaffirm readers of the accuracy of their claims and the validity of the particular chiropractic practices referred to. (Or withdraw them.)

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An horrific case of natural health treatment of cancer Grant Jacobs Mar 08

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Some of my local readers will have seen last night Lorelei Mason of TVNZ (Television New Zealand) present an horrific case of an iridiologist treating a skin cancer on the scalp which went on to invade the patient’s skull, eventually requiring major surgery.

(Source: wikipedia.)

(Source: wikipedia.)

You can read a text account of this news presentation, with comments from readers, or view the TV presentation on-line. (If you are viewing the video, you will need to wait for the advertisement to complete. Those squeamish about viewing exposed brains, may wish to avoid the appropriate parts of the video.)

Dr. Swee Tan, interviewed in the presentation, says that natural health practitioners ought to be registered. Some commenters offer that registration will not solve the problem.

My own thoughts, as a non-medical person-on-the-street, are that in one sense registration might legitimise the more moderate use of “remedies” like iridology, which grates given that many, if not most, of these remedies are nonsense under any use, but on the other hand registration offers some control over the worst extremes of misuse by obligating practitioners to adhere to guidelines.

Despite my unease at giving practices that lack evidential support credibility, my initial thoughts are that Swee Tan’s suggestion makes some sense: clients approaching someone offering medical remedies—of any kind—should have some assurance that the practitioner is being held to at least some basic responsibilities and at least some basic level of education in medicine. Ideally I would like to see unsound ‘natural remedy’ practices gone, but realistically this is unlikely to happen any time soon. Registration might be a good compromise in the meantime. Personally, I would like to see these guidelines also include some level of control over use of remedies that are not backed by evidence.

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Chiropractic libel suit snagged by its own ruling body? Grant Jacobs Mar 06

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The UK’s ruling body for chiropractors, the General Chiropractic Council (GCC), has declared the same claims that the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) have charged science writer Simon Singh as falsely claiming as “bogus” are contrary to evidence. Or, some would say, actually bogus.

u-johannesburg-spineAccording to the GCC’s “What is the GCC” page, “it is a criminal offence for anyone to describe themselves as any sort of chiropractor [in the UK] without being registered with the GCC” and that one of their aims is to “set the standards of chiropractic education, conduct and practice” (my emphasis).

I’m no lawyer, but on the face of it the BCA have two obvious choices: pull out of the libel case against Simon Singh as a consequence of the GCC’s findings, or part ranks with the GCC and sue their own ruling body in order to be consistent with continuing with their suit against Simon Singh.

Although (highly) unlikely, particularly as they are almost certainly legally obligated to work within the constraints of the GCC, the latter option would be an entertaining dog fight.

The news of the GCC’s findings originate from an article from the Guardian by Martin Robbins that scibling Alison Campbell emailed me and earlier reported earlier tonight. In his article, Robbins claims that an up-shot of the law suit against Simon Singh is that:

A staggering one in four chiropractors in Britain are now under investigation for allegedly making misleading claims in advertisements, according to figures from the General Chiropractic Council.

The details for the interested are in Robbins’ article, but the essence is that the BCA is swamped with claims and it’s costing them.

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The inheritance of face recognition (should you blame your parents if you can’t recognise faces?) Grant Jacobs Mar 03

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This post was chosen as an Editor's Selection for ResearchBlogging.orgYou’d think that recognising faces is one of those things that we all do well, or at least the vast majority of us do, yet in practice our ability to do this varies.

Recent twin studies present evidence that face recognition is heritable and is a distinct cognitive task in it’s own right.

faceless-head-250pxAt one end of the scale is the inability to recognise faces almost entirely, called prosopagnosia, a term first coined in 1947 by Bodamer in his landmark paper fusing the Greek word prosopon, meaning ‘face’ to agnosia, the term for recognition impairment.

The cartoon to the right is drawn by a child from Mr. Taylor’s class at Rutherford Elementary School in Nanaimo, B.C. as part of a large collection of idioms drawn by 9-11 year-olds. Whether this child was prosopagnosic or not, it’s a fine visual image of what the disorder might be like.

This condition is told in the opening story of Oliver Sacks’ book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, where he recounts the case of the musician Dr. P., who increasingly could not recognise the faces of his students, but could recognise them from their voices, and who would see faces where their were none. Dr. Sacks wonderfully describes this as being Magoo-like, for those that know the cartoon, describing how Dr. P. would occasionally pat the heads of water hydrants or parking meters, mistaking them for small children. If you haven’t read any of Dr. Sacks’ works, please do yourself a favour and find a few copies. (For more on Dr. Sacks’ works, see the first footnote.) He describes, trying to diagnose Dr. P. as “He faced me with his ears, I came to think, but not with his eyes.” (Dr. Sacks’ emphasis.) Read the rest of this entry »

Advertising campaigns: homeopathy or a sceptical series? Grant Jacobs Feb 26

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The atheist bus campaign has me thinking… what if there were a similar campaign against homeopathic remedies? Or an on-going series of advertisements questioning dubious practices of all kinds? Fridays are good for day-dreaming, right?

uk-bus-2NZ Bus seems to have had an attack of tremulous timidity in the face of “some” complaints and have withdrawn their initial approval, the advertising campaign is getting plenty of attention as a consequence of their withdrawing approval. (Articles I’ve read don’t have them saying how many complaints were received from, nor from who.)

It strikes me this is strategy where the advertisers more-or-less can’t completely lose. If the advertising company pulls out, the withdrawal only attracts more attention!

Imagine a series of sceptical advertisements, perhaps run along the lines of the Tui beer advertisements? (For those from overseas, this local beer company is famous for it’s marketing campaign featuring a two part advertisement with a short statement on the left-hand side and “Yeah, right” on the right-hand side. They’re typically to the point and unsubtle. Think: “Homeopathic remedies work. Yeah right.”)

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Undiluted humour: If Homeopathy Beats Science Grant Jacobs Feb 24

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I know I really shouldn’t… But I can’t help myself.

This video, picked up via undergraduate biology student Michael Hawkins’s blog (which has just been restored to him after considerable fuss) is too good to pass up. Can’t beat British humour.

YouTube Preview Image

The alert will note the signage in the “hospital”.

In case you’re wondering, it’s taken from the BAFTA award-winning British (BBC 2) comedy sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look.

More on homeopathy articles on Code for Life:

Homeopathy check-up: Not in the health system, disclaimers on labels

Homeopathic remedies in NZ pharmacies

British homeopathy sceptics group aims for sugar high (with Dawkins video)

Other articles on Code for Life:

Positive encouragement for vaccination

Special edition of Biochemist E-volution: Science and the Media on-line free

Has Andrew Wakefield resigned from Thoughtful House? (Updated)

Map shows New Zealand with lowest death rate on earth in 1856, over 11 in 1000 dying

Deleting a gene can turn an ovary into a testis in adult mammals

All this talk about 3-D movies and TVs is depressing

Developing bioinformatics methods: by who and how

Homeopathy check-up: Not in the health system, disclaimers on labels Grant Jacobs Feb 23

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Today England’s Science and Technology Committee published it’s “Evidence Check 2″ report on Homeopathy.

evidence-check-2-homeopathyOverall, it’s a resounding “no” to homeopathy. The report comes down hard on UK government agencies relationships to homeopathy and recommends stronger transparency in the commercial sector, too.

The report was to look at government policy, particularly the NHS (England’s National Health System) funding and provision of homeopathy and on MHRA licensing of these remedies. (MHRA = Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.)

Given the amount of material reviewed, it’s a reasonably compact report, with pages 1-47 covering all most people will want to read.

I’m going to leave aside the science arguments for later articles and deal with only their overall conclusions and their remarks about pharmacies here. I’m condensing, so visit the full documents if you want the original contexts.

Among the recommendations (p43-47) are:

On homeopathy, that:

Homeopathy is not efficacious, i.e., homeopathy does not work beyond the placebo effect

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Has Andrew Wakefield resigned from Thoughtful House? (Updated) Grant Jacobs Feb 18

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Andrew Wakefield, whose work has been at the heart of a MMR vaccine “scare”, has been in the news of late owing to the UK General Medical Council ruling on his 1998 Lancet paper, the retraction of this research paper and more recently the withdrawal of another research paper.

Orac has a blog post tonight querying if this news of his resignation is true. If it’s true, and I want to stress that “if”, it’s a bit of a bolt out of the blue. At the moment there is no formal announcement on the Thoughtful House website.

Thoughtful House’s response to the GMC ruling was very much to support Wakefield, so this would be a considerable shift in position. [This web page has now been removed, see update below.]

While still awaiting confirmation Brian Deer, the investigative journalist behind bringing this story to the public eye, has just commented:

Yes, I heard this was coming some days ago.

With this in hand, I would say we should be looking forward to a formal confirmation of this news in the near future. (I trust no-one is silly enough to be posing as Brian Deer!)

Update: [7:30am 19-Feb-2010] While no formal statement of Wakefield resignation has been posted, Thoughtful House has removed their statement responding to the GMC ruling and have removed Wakefield from the list of staff on their website.

Other posts on Wakefield and autism on Code for life:

Another Wakefield paper pulled?

Lancet formally retracts Wakesfield paper

Autistic children and blood mercury levels

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