All about the science of disease
Having been on the internet talking about bad science for about a year, I had until recently managed to stay away from talking about vaccines. However, I have recently broken my personal rule and talked about vaccines here. I was almost immediately reminded of why I had made such a rule, when I received quite … Read more
As a scientist who spends a lot of her time engaging with public policy and the media, the anti-vaccination (anti-vax for short) is one of the few things that manages to exasperate me on a semi-daily basis. The main reason I have not covered much of its proceedings on this blog is simply because I … Read more
Last year we covered one of the most diffuse misconceptions about health and nutrition: that turmeric, one of the key ingredients in a delicious curry, is somehow a cure for cancer. As we explored in our piece at the time, this claim is completely baseless. One of the active compounds contained in turmeric, however, is … Read more
In an apparent attempt to taint the remaining vegetables that haven’t been Daily Mail-ized, some of the popular media has turned against asparagus over the last few days. It turns out, asparagus gives you breast cancer! For once, some of the media also started fighting back, in an attempt to explain why the winter vegetable … Read more
As of December 2018, the FDA has proposed a new, risk-based enforcement approach to homeopathic drug products that have the greatest potential to cause risk to patients. This represents a welcome first step in attempting to regulate so-called “alternative medicine”, which has, as mentioned several times in this and in other related platforms, the potential to … Read more
This week, scientists from the University of Singapore have published their findings on a novel new system to fight colorectal cancer. In particular, they have found a way to fight cancer stem cells, a small group of cells within a tumor that are considered among the most dangerous part of cancer. These cells can reproduce … Read more