Denialism Blog

Denialism Blog

  • The economy, denialism, and perception

    How bad is the economy?

    Really fucking bad. My patients are losing their jobs, the restaurants are empty, businesses are shuttered, houses empty.

    Really, really fucking bad.

    What does the government have to say about it? Not so bad. Chill.

    There are some good reasons for this. As the recent Indymac debacle shows, a statement from a politician can destroy a bank (although, to be fair, the bank was a dead man walking before Schumer’s letter came out).

    So, when our leaders continue to downplay the economic disaster in this country, are they being denialists, or responsible public servants?
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  • No right answers

    I take care of my own patients in the hospital. I say that because it is not a given for internists. For a number of reasons, many having to do with time management and money, most internists utilize hospitalists, internal medicine docs who specialize in the care of hospitalized patients.

    Taking care of patients in the hospital presents some unique challenges. First, they are very, very ill. You have to be pretty sick to get into a hospital these days. You must be willing to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And you have to be able to deal with some rather intractable problems.

    My SciBling DrugMonkey had an interesting post about dealing with hospital patients who have addictions. This is a common, daily problem for me and other docs who see hospitalized patients.

    The most common substance is tobacco, followed by alcohol, followed by “other” (pot, heroin, prescription opiates, methamphetamine, cocaine, etc.).
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  • Medical Education—service vs. education

    Teaching new doctors is an interesting process. Much has been done over the last ten years to improve the way we teach new doctors. Medical residents still work very hard, but there are strict rules on work hours and other “service” duties that can interfere with education and safety.

    One of the issues that often comes up in running a residency program is the problem of “service” vs. “education”. Per the accrediting body that does these things:

    The learning objectives of the program must not be compromised by excessive reliance on residents to fulfill service obligations.

    Along with details such as work hours limitations, this is one of the more important guiding principles for residencies. This can be a real problem on certain very busy medical services, such as an intensive care unit.

    Residency is work; there is no getting around that. But in exchange for this work, residents expect to receive teaching, feedback, and respect. There are operational measures of these parameters used in evaluating residency programs.

    When residents aren’t treated with respect, aren’t given proper feedback, and aren’t taught, it frankly pisses me off. These young doctors are counting on us to mitigate their fears and build their confidence. They are counting on us to impart the practical knowledge that they will use to save lives. There is very little justification for using a resident as your personal scut-monkey, and even less for yelling, degrading, or otherwise humiliating them. That’s not how you make good doctors.

  • Update: Wilson vs. Science

    Dr. David Gorski has an excellent and comprehensive post up on Science-based medicine regarding the horrid report by Steve Wilson on Channel 7 Detroit. Go and read.

  • PZ vs. the cracker

    I was trying to avoid weighing in on this one, but blogorrhea always wins.

    I won’t bother rehashing the details of the imbroglio—if you don’t know, well, you’ve been sleeping. Go on…google “pharyngula cracker”…I can wait.

    OK, now that you’ve caught up, here’s my two cents.

    I’m conflicted about this. It’s not usually a good thing to offend people’s deeply held beliefs unless those beliefs are deeply offensive. A free society requires a great deal of tolerance. This of course cuts both ways–if Catholics can expect reasonable peace, so can those who criticize their beliefs.

    As I started writing this, my daughter took the pen out of my tablet pc and broke the clip off of it. I reacted angrily, and she gave me one of those “I’m gonna punish you by crying” looks. I grabbed her, held her tight, and said, “It’s just a thing, honey. Things aren’t important; people are.”

    And that helped put things in perspective—sort of. How would I feel if someone grabbed a Torah out of the Ark and tossed it on the floor? I’d be angry at the gesture, and possibly frightened, given the history of my people.

    The fact that people are willing to die in the name of an object, rather than a person, saddens me. Objects, no matter how deeply revered, are objects. Fundamentalists often claim a unique insight into the value of human life, based on it’s relationship to the divine. At the same time, they are uniquely able to imbue inanimate objects with that same divine presence. Atheists are often criticized for having no basis for valueing life, but, hey, how many atheists will threaten your life over a scroll or a cracker? Deification of the inanimate, raising the value of the inanimate above that of a human being is unique to religion, and a unique danger.

    My daughter is smart enough to know that a thing is a thing, a person a person, and one is more valuable than the other. Perhaps the fundies need a lesson from a four year-old.

  • Just one more thing…

    Look, my beef with Steve Wilson isn’t about style, isn’t about quality, isn’t about personality…it’s about truths, and it’s about health. Getting a detail wrong in an investigation of, say, cement is a peccadillo. Helping spread lies about the most important public health measure since clean water is a real problem.

    It probably couldn’t hurt to drop a line to the station. I’m not sure if the email address is any good, so here’s the snail mail.

    Bob Sliva, Vice President / General Manager
    WXYZ-TV
    20777 West Ten Mile Road
    Southfield, MI 48037

    talkback@wxyz.com

  • Some of the best blogs you might not be reading

    This is my little version of blogrolling, something I vowed to never do, but I’ve been reading so many good blogs lately that I’d like to share some links. Some of these are on our blogroll, some aren’t.

    EpiWonk: An epidemiology blog.

    Archeoporn: one of the best names on the web.

    Submitted to a Candid World: progressive politics, but not a rant.

    Evangelical Realism: this ain’t your grandma’s Old Time Religion

    The field negro: stuff you didn’t know you needed to know, but you need to know it

    The Bad Idea Blog, apparently written by Jabba the Hut.

    Historiann: written by a, well, historian, and yet mysteriously not boring.

    Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes: another great blog with a great name

  • Some random thoughts

    Some links, general business, and not-so random thoughts.

    Tangled Bank #109 is up at Greg’s place.

    The Blog that Ate Manhattan is hosting the latest Grand Rounds, Seinfeld additon.

    ScienceBlogs has a new project called Next Generation Energy. It will cover energy problems, alternative, etc. It will feature writers from ScienceBlogs and other outside experts. Interestingly, it’s being sponsored by Shell, which has led to a bit of discussion. Check it out.

    The 94th Carnival of the Godless came out a few weeks ago, and I hadn’t realized we were featured, so here’s a link.

    PZ Myers had an interesting post yesterday that sparked controversy both IRL and withing the blogging community. It is about some shit-disturbing student who stole a Eucharist waffer from a Catholic service.

    I’m of two minds about this. If you wish to protest odd religious practices, fine. But to violate a sanctuary where no one is being harmed is not only in poor taste, it scares people, as it has a tinge of oppression (even though one bored student is hardly oppressive). Writing about religious foolishness is one thing, invading a church is another. Obviously, this would be a different issue if a minority religious institution in a secular nation were invaded—most Americans are going to side with the church on this one, so they are hardly in danger. Sure, it’s just a fucking cracker to me, but not to them. To them it is the physical representation of their god. I’m not sure how violating this serves the purpose of rationalism.

    Next, an interesting (for me) occurance. I hate medical mis-information, and never hesitate to go after it. A recent post of mine criticized a post in the NYT. The information in the post was execrable. The writer is not. Tara is a friend of medical reporting, which in no way renders her immune from making mistakes, or suffering criticism (as I often have), but when writing a blog on critical thought, where do you draw the line? Folks like Gary Null and Joe Mercola are systematically spreading bad medical information, and taking people’s money. Tara’s column is generally quite good, and is not an outlet for separating people from truth and money. I’m sure that I don’t always know where to draw the line. I think I hit the correct tone in my earlier post about a news reporter. In my critique of the NYT piece, I think I was spot on about the content, but not the writer.

    If you have the stomach for it, I’m going to try to teach you a little evidence-based medicine later, and the name Bayes may come up. Stay tuned.

  • Feministe on Gardasil

    Complementing Pal’s essay on Gardasil yesterday is our buddy la Pobre Habladora guest blogging on Feministe.

    Which, I think, brings us to a new angle on anti-vax denialism because as Pal mentions, the motivations behind harping on Gardasil are different than the usual nonsense. Gardasil, to everyone’s dismay, has become intertwined with sexual politics in this country. As the only vaccine that has been identified as preventing a sexually-transmitted disease (the HepB vaccine managed to avoid this, not to mention an association with IV-drug use) there has been a clear impetus among the anti-sex crowd to malign this treatment for girls.

    Two things which I think are disgusting and idiotic about this practice. One, I’m willing to bet if it were for boys and not girls, we wouldn’t have this problem. Second, it suggests there is a subset of parents that feels that if their children somehow violate the rules of sex that disease and death should be the wages of their sin.

    Is there nothing not disgusting about these attitudes? While the CNN article doesn’t get into this nonsense, let’s not forget the main obstacle to the acceptance of this highly-effective vaccine is not safety issues (it’s a very safe vaccine and the incidents cited in the article are likely coincidence) but rather the amoral bigotries of idiots who are desperate to control women’s sexuality – even to the detriment of women’s health.

  • Antivax lies from a local reporter

    It’s worse than I thought.

    A local investigative reporter has just broadcast a report on mercury, vaccines, and autism that was devoid of any investigation. It was a piece of lazy journalism, relying on the propaganda of the antivax cults, rather than real medical information. It was a pure propaganda piece. Before this aired, I did email Wilson and offer to hook him up with actual experts. I received no reply.

    Let me share some details…
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