Return on investment for clinical trials

A paper in ??The Lancet?? (and reported here) noted that the ROI (return on investment) for 28 clinical trials done by the NINDS(National Institutes of Neurological Disease and Stroke) resulted in a calculated societal benefit of $15 billion. That’s billion with a B. And if you don’t like that measure of societal benefit, try an [...]

Lying with statistics: when statistics can’t tell the truth, or why I’m interested in the statistics of drug safety (and an application to the thimerosal-autism controversy)

Drug safety is hard to study. There are so many things that can go wrong with the human body. To statistically analyze every single possible thing that can go wrong is impossible. There are thousands of possible adverse events, a whole lot of laboratory measurements that have to be taken (so we can address, among [...]

Acupuncture vs. fibromyalgia: 2 out of 3 isn’t bad

A recent study found acupuncture to be an effective therapy for treating fibromyalgia pain, fatigue, and anxiety. Of two other studies, one reported positive conclusions and one reported negative. The study claims to be a model of how acupuncture clinical trials can be run. Technorati Tags: acupuncture, alternative medicine

Music: the undrug

Music has been the subject of a recent volume in the Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences. I’ve recently covered music as both a therapy for asthma and diabetes and as synergist of sorts with MDMA (ecstasy). Frank Herbert knew about the power effects of music when he wrote in ??Dune?? about the drug [...]

While anti-vaccine researchers are being charged with ethical lapses, the mercury issue marches on

Dr. Mercola links to an public service announcement about the presence of mercury in vaccines. This PSA(Public Service Announcement) contains one tidbit that I haven’t heard yet: that the EPA suggests that the amount of mercury still present in vaccines is safe only if you weigh over 500 pounds. Is there a source for this [...]

Mark and David Geiers’ IRB: If there is a story here, I’m disappointed

Activists asserting a connection between vaccines (or components of vaccines) and autism have had a hard time of late. First, it was Dr. Wakefield, proponent of the theory of the connection between the MMR(Mumps, Measles, Rubella) vaccine and both autism and irritable bowels, was formally charged with professional misconduct. Now, Kathleen Siedel of Neurodiversity has [...]

Lying with (non)statistics: Phasers are set to “kill habit”

Public citizen has “filed a petition”:http://www.wral.com/health/9412806/detail.html to end the marketing of a “low-power laser acupuncture” treatment for smoking cessation. What struck me was not the treatment itself, but the way in which the so-called clinical trials they are running to “prove” their treatment’s efficacy. You can read about it at the link, but to me [...]

Every high school needs one of these

I probably needed to be sent to this room several times during my grade school years.

Spontaneous mountain hiking

Ok, so after yoga yesterday and some time relaxing at home, the family and I decided to try out a “mountain” state park close to our homeI put mountain in quotes because the elevation at peak is 867 ft above ground level, at least according to the literature they have. I understand that in order [...]

Getting back into practice

So today I went back to a yoga class for the first time in 3 weeks, and the second time in 5. I much prefer going once a week, and preferably two or three, but at least once. However, when life intervenes you do have to roll with the punches. In the meantime, I tried [...]