Over the past decade, Lyme disease has spread from its traditional confines of the northeast USA to throughout the country. Even though dogs have access to a Lyme disease vaccine, there have not been any available for humans for 18 years. But that’s about to change.
Vaccine manufacturers do not value dogs more than humans for this vaccine. In reality, the blame for why there isn’t a Lyme disease vaccine for children can be placed right where some of you expect it to be – loud-mouthed anti-vaxxers without any scientific evidence supporting their hatred of the vaccine.
Of course, this happened in the mid-1990s, and the internet was in its infancy. But there were people pushing the same narrative that we hear about the cancer preventing HPV vaccine – that the Lyme vaccine was actually worse than the disease itself. They made these claims based on bad or no evidence.
But a new lyme disease vaccine might be on its way fairly soon. This is good news.
Continue reading “Lyme disease vaccine on the way – if only the anti-vaxxers stay away”
Despite the cancer tropes that seem to afflict Facebook and Twitter these days, which includes the laughable “Big Pharma is hiding a secret cancer cure” myth, recently published evidence shows that cancer mortality rates in the USA are dropping. This is great news if you’re wondering if cancer is an end-of-life diagnosis – science-based medicine is attacking and beating cancer with numerous strategies for each cancer. And yes, instead of hiding cancer cures, Big Pharma is providing a lot of the successful medications in treating the disease.
The report, published in the journal Cancer by researchers at the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, provides us with the mostly good news. Cancer mortality rates, which describes the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people per year, have dropped significantly in the USA. This drop includes most of the common cancers, such as lung, colorectal, breast, and prostate.
Unfortunately, the news isn’t all good – some cancer mortality rates have increased, and I will try to explain why. Let’s take a look at cancer and this new paper. Continue reading “Cancer mortality rates – mostly great news in war on cancer”
Most states in the USA, and many countries across the world have passed legislation that allows the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Some of this legislation is dependent on various claims, many of which appear to be based on weak or nonexistent scientific evidence. Of all of the purported marijuana medical benefits, only a handful are supported by real evidence.
This review, Committee on the Health Effects of Marijuana: An Evidence Review and Research Agenda (pdf, which can be downloaded for free by registering or can be found online here), published by the influential and prestigious National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, examined more than ten thousand scientific studies that involved cannabis and various medical conditions. The value of such a review is that it examines not only the quantity of evidence supporting a claim but also the quality of such evidence. In the end, it gives much more weight to high-quality evidence.
I know many comments will drop on this article that “you haven’t read that incredible study published in Journal of Weed and Cancer Cures” – that misses the point. The National Academies is a highly respected institution, made up of the most respected scientists in the USA. And the committee that created this review is made up of leading public health, cancer, epidemiology, pharmacology, and psychiatry, all fields germane to understanding clinical and basic scientific research into cannabis.
Moreover, a review like this does two things – it gives more weight to well done clinical trials and pre-clinical studies, and it eliminates poorly done and biased studies. This is how science works – examine ALL of the evidence before coming to a conclusion. Pseudoscience, on the other hand, is to have a conclusion, like “weed cures cancer,” and only seeking evidence that supports that preordained conclusion.
Furthermore, and this cannot be stressed enough, this review is not opinion. It is not belief. It is not cherry picking. It is a critical analysis based on thousands of studies published in peer-reviewed journals. This is not published in a pro-cannabis website that cherry picks, misinterprets, and overrates a one-off study in an obscure journal. The report is over 400 pages long – most of you will not read even a few pages, because it is a dense scientific review written by some of the top scientists in the USA. Before you denigrate the study, I would suggest you read it carefully.
To save you time from reading the 400+ page opus, which I did, I divided up the medical evidence from strong to none of the evidence in support of benefits and of risks from smoking cannabis. Not to bury the lede, but there are only three conditions for which there is strong, overwhelming evidence benefits of marijuana. Just three. Continue reading “Marijuana medical benefits – large review finds very few”
I have alerts set up to tell me whenever something is published on the internet about any adverse events that occur with respect to vaccines. A lot of it is nonsense pushed by the anti-vaccine religion, without any merit. Some are legitimate published articles, generally refuting myths about adverse effects. But today, we get the merging of my favorite topics – marijuana treats vaccine adverse effects. Yes, you read that right.
We all know about the pseudoscience surrounding the vaccine adverse effects myth – it’s almost always based on a misreading of the vaccine package inserts, anecdotes, false claims, and almost anything but facts. Rarely, vaccines can cause a serious adverse effect, no medical procedure is perfectly safe – however, the potential benefits far outweigh the risks of the vaccination.
So let’s take a look at this new nonsensical claim about both vaccines and marijuana. Grab a bag of Doritos and enjoy. Continue reading “Marijuana treats vaccine adverse effects – more pseudoscience”
The HPV cancer-preventing vaccine, especially Gardasil (or Silgard, depending on market), has been targeted by the anti-vaccine religion more than just about any other vaccine being used these days. So many people tell me that they give their children all the vaccines, but refuse to give them the HPV vaccine based on rumor and innuendo on the internet. This article provides all the posts I’ve written about Gardasil safety and efficacy.
As many of regular readers know, I focus on just a few topics in medicine, with my two favorites being vaccines and cancer – of course, the Gardasil cancer-preventing vaccine combines my two favorite topics. Here’s one thing that has become clear to me – there are no magical cancer prevention schemes. You are not going to prevent any of the 200 different cancers by drinking a banana-kale-quinoa smoothie every day. The best ways to prevent cancer are to quit smoking, stay out of the sun, keep active and thin, get your cancer-preventing vaccines, and following just a few more recommendations.
The benefits of the vaccine are often overlooked as a result of two possible factors – first, there’s a disconnect between personal activities today and cancer that could be diagnosed 20-30 years from now; and second, people think that there are significant dangers from the vaccine which are promulgated by the anti-vaccine religion.
It’s frustrating and difficult to explain Gardasil safety and efficacy as a result of the myths about safety and long-term efficacy of the vaccine. That’s why I have written nearly 200 articles about Gardasil safety and efficacy, along with debunking some ridiculous myths about the cancer-preventing vaccine. This article serves to be a quick source with links to most of those 200 articles.
And if you read nothing else in this review of Gardasil, read the section entitled “Gardasil safety and effectiveness – a quick primer” – that will link you to two quick to read articles that summarize the best evidence in support of the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.
Continue reading “Gardasil facts – debunking myths about HPV vaccine safety and efficacy”
How many times have you read a comment from an anti-vaccine zealot along the lines of “do your research, vaccines are bad.” That comment seems to imply two things – that the anti-vaxxer believes they have done real vaccine research, and those on the science/medicine side have not done real vaccine research.
Typical of nearly every claim made by the anti-vaccine religion, this is another one where they understate how hard vaccine research really is while overstating their actual skills and experience in comprehending real scientific research. I suppose this is a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect – a cognitive bias wherein people without a strong scientific background fail to recognize their actual ineptitude in the field and mistakenly overrate their knowledge and abilities as greater than it is.
On the other hand, I’ve done real scientific research and worked hard at it. Time to explain. Continue reading “Vaccine research – it doesn’t mean what the anti-vaxxers think it means”
One of the enduring myths (there are so many) about the HPV vaccine is that it is linked to one or more autoimmune syndromes, an abnormal immune response to a healthy body part. These claims, pushed by an Israeli physician, Yehuda Shoenfeld, are called “autoimmune syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA)” and, sometimes, Shoenfeld’s Syndrome.
Of course, ASIA is not accepted by the scientific and medical community (and see this published article), was rejected by the United States vaccine court as a claim for vaccine injury, and should not be accepted by parents deciding whether they should vaccinate their children. Furthermore, the European Medicines Agency, which is the primary regulatory body in the EU for pharmaceuticals, has rejected any link between the HPV vaccine and various autoimmune disorders. The science stands in direct opposition to autoimmune syndromes being caused by any vaccine.
Despite the lack of evidence supporting the existence of autoimmune syndrome induced by adjuvants, and even more powerful evidence that it doesn’t exist, the anti-vaccine religion still cherry-picks articles to support their preconceived conclusions that the HPV cancer-preventing vaccine is dangerous. Continue reading “Autoimmune syndromes induced by adjuvants – another anti-vaccine myth”
Stop me if you’ve heard this before – another anti-HPV vaccine paper gets retracted. Yeah, I’ve written about these retractions so many times (here, here, and here, and that’s just a sample), I could publish a book just about these “researchers.” And now we here about another anti-vaccine study, that was recently retracted, which claimed that the HPV vaccine caused neurological damages. This study heads to the dustbin of scientific research, as it deserves.
A mountain of high quality, robust clinical and epidemiological evidence has overwhelmingly established that the HPV vaccine is safe and effective. This is approaching the level of settled science.
With the retraction of the study that the HPV vaccine caused neurological damage, it’s clear that the anti-vaccine crowd has almost nothing to support their hatred of the vaccine. Not that it will stop them. Continue reading “HPV vaccine caused neurological damage? Journal retracts article”
One of the many tropes about HPV vaccine from the anti-vaccine religion is that the vaccine has no effect on any cancer. Recently, I wrote an article that outlined the evidence that supports a link between HPV vaccines and cancer – that is, the vaccine does lower the risk of cancer. After I wrote that article, a new systematic review was published that, indeed, the HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancer.
Many people think that cancer is some sort of on/off switch – in fact, HPV-related cancers may take years or decades to be diagnosed. However, it’s been 8-12 years since the vaccine has been available (depending on the country), so a population of young women (the vaccine was only indicated for women in most countries until a few years ago) is now getting to the age where they may be diagnosed with either cancer or pre-cancerous lesions.
As the population of women (and eventually men) reaches the age where risks of certain cancers are increased, we can use epidemiological studies to determine whether or not there is a difference in cancer risk between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. Let’s review the systematic review that examined a surprisingly large number of studies that support the fact that the HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancer. Continue reading “HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancer – a systematic review”
The history of one fake anti-vaccine researcher after another permeates the anti-vaccine religion – it is legendary. We have the multiple-retracted authors, Shaw and Tomljenovic who think that the HPV vaccine is dangerous. They keep pushing this trope, but they really present no clinical evidence to support their beliefs, and they are mocked mercilessly for their poor science. And then their fake research is retracted.
Now there’s a new paper being pushed by the anti-vaccine world published online in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. which pushes the implausible narrative that a review of cervical cancer incidence in Sweden shows that HPV vaccine increases the risk of cancer. We will get to a discussion of the data in a bit, let’s look at the big issue with paper – the author himself. Continue reading “Fake anti-vaccine researcher publishes worthless HPV vaccine article – fail”
