The prospect of infections spreading from animals to humans has become all too real with the onset of the current swine flu pandemic, and the threat of a bird flu still looming. But infections can jump the other way too. Decades before the world’s media were gripped with panic over bird flu, humans transferred a [...]

An op-ed that appears in today’s New York Daily News exposes the widespread misleading claims being made by anti-smoking groups about the acute cardiovascular effects of secondhand smoke. The unsupported and biased conclusions of the IOM report about smoking bans and heart attacks are only one example of the loss of scientific integrity of the [...]

I try not to overbook at my office. I have about 16 slots every morning for returning patients (fewer if I have new patients booked, which I usually do). I usually schedule, counting new and old patients, 12 patients every morning. If I were to cut my appointment slots down to 10 [...]

I sure hope so. Recently, I have said that I don’t believe in capital punishment; anyway, Canada does not have it any more.
Note: I am not in any way soft on crime or inclined to make excuses for serious perps. I’ve dealt with enough perps in my own life that I have zero interest in [...]

President Barack Obama signed an order last night declaring that the swine flu is a national emergency. This allows the implementation of emergency plans. So, what is an emergency plan?
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Here’s a great reason for rejecting pop neuroscience, titled “We are neuroscientists and we come in peace”:

Hmmm. Just try coming to war here and see what happens.
Just when it seemed things could get no worse, Hank Greely of Stanford Law School pointed to several areas of potential friction between neuroscience research and widely held religious [...]

Source: Society for NeuroscienceDate: October 20, 2009
Summary:
Animal research is suggesting new ways to aid recovery after spinal cord injury. New studies demonstrate that diet affects recovery rate and show how to make stem cell therapies safer for spinal injury patients. The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2009, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience [...]

Okaaaaaay…
*squint*
Let me preface this post by stating that I am not an MD. I dont care, particularly, about whether CFS is a ‘real’ disease or psychosomatic or a catch-all category for people MDs dont know how to treat. Sorry. So if you want to bitch about CFS, pro or con, dont do [...]

DISH diagnostic criteria include the following : Flowing calcifications and ossifications along the anterolateral aspect of at least 4 contiguous vertebral bodies, with or without osteophytes. Preservation of disk height in the involved areas and an absence of excessive disk disease. Absence of bony ankylosis of facet joints and absence of sacroiliac erosion, sclerosis, or [...]

This is a six year old boy with history of measles and neurological complaints. Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a progressive, slow virus infection of the brain, caused by the measles virus, attacking children and young adults. In the early period, lesions are in the grey matter and subcortical white matter. They are asymmetrical and [...]