GraniteGeek readers have already heard me whine - er, heard my insightful comments about serious middle-age back pain; today the Telegraph readers get to hear it too, in my column. Read it here!
I did at least pretend my column was journalism by interviewing a physician, whose advice was echoed by some comments in this blog: [...]

It was inevitable, I suppose: I wrote a column two weeks ago highlighting the virtual disappearance of West Nile Virus from New Hampshire (no cases were found in animals, birds or mosquitoes last year, making us the only state in the nation so favored) - and now the state announces that it has been found [...]

Because of my back problems I am looking into yoga, tai chi and the like - activities that emphasize balance and flexibility rather than strength and endurance. So I was amused by a Washington Post article about the Indian government fighting efforts by some US companies to copyright their styles of yoga. (Read it here.)
Apparently [...]

A fascinating study (discussed here in the NY Times) indicates that acupuncture does help ease self-reported pain in patients with knee arthritis, even when it’s “fake” acupuncture, meaning that the needles were inserted randomly rather than in the places indicated by traditional acupuncture theory.
This seems to indicate that much of acupuncture’s benefit comes from the [...]

This from the May, 1898 issue of The Model Engineer and Amateur Electrician. These are filled with new developments of the age including dubious medical applications of electricial appliances.  The magazine had several construction articles for generating your own X-rays, or Rontgen rays. With these, you could see the bones in your hand or, with one [...]

Maine has passed a law which will provide free vaccinations for all children. Press-Herald story here:
Outbreaks of whooping cough in Maine are a sign that risks have grown….  Measles outbreaks in other parts of the country and polio outbreaks in other parts of the world are additional reminders that the diseases can [...]

As I report in the Sunday Telegraph (read it here), nobody can figure out why a woman got gastro-intestinal anthrax by inhaling a spore during an early December drumming circle. She is the first recorded case in the U.S., and maybe the world, of such a combination.
There was nothing unusual about the anthrax spore (”garden [...]

The word “energy” gets tossed around a lot by folks who don’t really know what it means - most annoyingly, in the goofier alternative therapies. (”These crystals focus your body’s internal energy field and enhance energy flow, blah blah blah”). During my classes to become an EMIT I’ve been hearing the word plenty in a [...]

You’ve probably heard that the Lancet, the most prominent British research journal, has retracted a flawed 1998 study linking certain vaccines with autism, saying that the science was wrong and the main researcher misbehaved. (Coverage here, and here, but there’s plenty more online) That paper pretty much launched the modern anti-vaccine hysteria, and thus indirectly [...]

The case of a woman who got anthrax in Durham, apparently due to a group drumming session that used some African drums with animal hides as drumheads involves the first-ever case of gastrointestinal anthrax - as compared to anthrax affecting lungs or skin - reported in the U.S. Drum heads made from animal hides are [...]

Actually, one Maine legislator wants the state to require cell phones to carry warnings that they might cause brain cancer, reports the Portland Press-Herald.
The article does a good job emphasizing the fact that the issue has been studied fairly well and has found no danger. To reduce it to sayings/cliches, we have “better safe than [...]

The Associated Press has a great story today examining the role of the placebo effect in medicine - both real medicine and stuff like Reiki. It’s a well done article, neither pooh-poohing nor pretending that a couple of anecdotes provide legitimate evidence. It includes details about how lots of double-blind tests haven’t found anything real [...]

The Globe has more detail in this story about Dartmouth’s continuing research into possible links between blue-green algae blooms and neurological diseases, particularly ALS, aka Lou Gehrig’s disease. Apparently a toxin produced by the bacteria, called BMAA (ß-methylamino-L-alanine), is a trigger.
The connection was prodded in part by an ALS cluster around Lake Mascoma, near Hanover. [...]

Homeopathic “remedies” - expensive water that has been banged or shaken in ways that adherents claim gives it inexplicable powers - have always had one real advantage over medicine: Because they are diluted to nothingness they can’t have any side effects, which allows the very real power of the placebo effect to take hold.
So it [...]

Blue-green algae blooms in Mascoma Lake may be linked to a higher-than-expected rate of Lou Gerhrig’s Disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS), reports the Valley News. It’s a good story that is based on research at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center rather than the vague concerns of some residents, which is too often the case in stories [...]