“Natural”…not always what you think.

Some days, I just want to bang my head on my desk at work.
A couple of months ago, I diagnosed a young woman with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. As her TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) was fairly high and, being an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman, she wasn’t taking any birth control*, so I prescribed her levothyroxine (L-T4) or [...]

We’ve come a long way, baby…or have we?!

I was decluttering the other day, and found a folder full of pages I’d clipped from women’s magazines years ago. Among the articles promising ‘Buns of Steel in 21 Days’ and ‘The Perfect Chocolate Souffle’ I found the ad for Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Bars pictured below. As far as I can remember, it’s torn from a [...]

You should read this as well…

Prometheus over at A Photon in the Darkness has a new post up, the first in a series, called A Layperson’s Guide to the Scientific Literature – Part 1. It looks to be the start of a great series, and at once more basic and more comprehensive than my Critical reading 101 series.
Recommended warmly [...]

Thimerosal and autism – an overview, Part II

This is Part II of the series on the purported thimerosal/autism link. Part I, which gives the history of the controversy, is here. Part III is here. . Some of the events mentioned here are still evolving. In this and the subsequent installment, I’ll attempt to clarify some of the myths and conspiracy theories [...]

You need to read this.

Kneelingwoman is the pseudonym of a recently-retired homebirth midwife. While our parenting styles and general outlook on life probably differ radically, I’ve long been an admirer of both her superior writing abilities and her intellectual honesty. Now she’s written a blogpost which every mother, whatever her parenting preferences, should read.
So what are you waiting [...]

Move over, Galileo

Part II of the thimerosal-autism controversy will be ready soon, but first I’d like to bring up a somewhat related topic: the notion that the medical or scientific community will reject out-of-hand any theory they don’t “like”, because it’s cumbersome, inconvenient or threatening to the “establishment”. This is called the Galileo gambit, to commemorate how [...]

Thimerosal and autism – an overview, Part I

Ever since I wrote about the MMR/autism “controversy” a few months ago, I’ve been meaning to visit the subject of thimerosal in vaccines. I’ve been reluctant to take this on as it is a very large, complex subject, and a couple of blogposts won’t even scratch the surface. I’ll attempt to give the highlights of [...]

Sometimes, it’s not so good to have principles

You read it often on messageboards throughout the ‘net: “But that still isn’t proof that (this vaccine, that GM food, this method) is safe! It’s all a huge experiment by the scientists, and we’re all guinea pigs!”. This despite the fact that the product or method under discussion (CIO, DTP vaccines, infant forumla or GM [...]

Computer, RIP

My computer went on the blink the day before yesterday and refused to boot up. Despite emergency surgery by the hubby, the patient was declared DOA. Unfortunately, the computer he’s letting me use right now isn’t letting me install Acrobat Reader on it, which in the context of writing these blogposts, can be rather crippling. [...]

…and yet MORE on the “natural” age of weaning

You never know where you’ll end up when you set sail upon the Seas of Google.