This NPR report describes how researchers in Oregon have adapted a technique to administer citywide drug tests using sewage. The research team, led by Dr. Jennifer Field, is part of a relatively new field of science called “sewage epidemiology”.
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A new patient came to see me a few months back. She is in her 60’s or 70’s and not in the best health. She is very nice. And simple—very simple. I spoke to her brother before the appointment. He told me that she was a normal, happy kid until the age of seven.
Then […]

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I’ve lamented the infiltration of woo into academic medicine. I’ve even gone so far as to try to keep a list of all the academic medical centers in North America that have “integrative medicine” programs that credulously teach and promote non-evidence-based medicine as though it were evidence-based with my Academic Woo Aggregator. I’ve speculated that […]

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In July 2005 when there was a terrorist bombing in the London subway system the FBI, using a perfectly valid and legal subpoena, asked for and obtained documents from North Carolina State University about a possible conspirator. That apparently wasn’t good enough for the FBI. They wanted the agent to get the documents using a […]

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Somewhere along the way my yoga practice grew larger than my yoga mat. I started to care more about myself in the world — a part of the bigger picture. Along with that came a desire to accept more responsibility for my actions, my behavior, and my circumstances. I started to care about my impact […]

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Somewhere along the way my yoga practice grew larger than my yoga mat. I started to care more about myself in the world — a part of the bigger picture. Along with that came a desire to accept more responsibility for my actions, my behavior, and my circumstances. I started to care about my impact […]

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President Bush has tried again to make the world believe that he will rectify his shameful record of ignoring, denying and fuelling climate change. He’s announced that by 2025, the US will stop increasing its emissions. Yes, for another 15 years the country that has spewed more emissions into the atmosphere than any other country […]

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As I wing my way back home from San Diego, I’ve had a bit of time to digest what I saw and learned at the AACR meeting. Overall, it was an above average but definitely not outstanding meeting, and I may discuss specifics more at a later time. One key theme that seems to be […]

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Dr Kimball Atwood IV at Science-Based Medicine and my long-time blogging colleague Orac have spilled oceans of e-ink on the institutionalization of alternative or integrative medicine in North America’s top academic medical centers. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is now often called “integrative medicine” to intellectually justify the incorporation of evidence-free, anecdotal practices into the […]

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Peter Doshi has a bone to pick with CDC . His particular idée fixe is that CDC is cooking the books on their estimates of excess mortality attributable to influenza and he aims to set the record straight. He’s done it before. Doshi is not the kind of critic CDC is used to. He is […]

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