President Trump is Ignoring America’s Trump Card in the Conflict with China

President Trump recently announced a series of harsh measures against China, including the suspension of entry of all graduate and post-graduate students into the United States.  I can understand the desire to protect American intellectual property by preventing students from learning skills and intellectual property and then returning to China and making use of them without royalties.  But a blanket ban on the entry of Chinese students ignores how the fields of medicine, science, and engineering really work and is likely to backfire spectacularly.

Disclosing Conflicts of Interest on Twitter is Security Theater at its Finest

Conflicts of interest (COIs) have been in the news lately, with the resignations and public mea culpas of several prominent figures over undisclosed conflicts of interest in journal articles.  Memorial Sloan Kettering is one of the two top cancer hospitals in the United States: unequaled by anyone other than MD Anderson in it's advanced, cutting edge care. The Chief Medical Officer of that institution spectacularly resigned after failing to note millions of dollars in payments by pharmaceutical companies he had worked with in journal articles which he wrote.

Now I will disclose here that I am a Baylor College of Medicine General Surgery resident who will rotate at MD Anderson.

Is the FDA's "Ban" on Gay Men Donating their Blood Discriminatory?

In the wake of the horrific Orlando shootings, there has been renewed attention given to the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) so-called ban on blood donations from Gay men.  A congressman called the ban discriminatory, and demanded it's repeal- a call joined by the American Medical Student Association and many others.

Theranos, The Wall Street Journal, and what Everyone is Missing: the Harms of Overtesting

Theranos is a Silicon Valley start-up dedicated to revolutionizing (some would say disrupting) the medical blood testing industry.  The claim to fame of the company was to use a single drop of blood from a finger stick to run hundreds of tests.  This premise led to a $9 Billion valuation and rock-star status for it's founder, Elizabeth Holmes- and was recently threatened by a Wall Street Journal exposé, which claimed the company's tests were not that accurate and that they used traditional blood testing for most of their work.

Chiropractors Must Join MDs, DOs, Podiatrists, Dentists, Nurses, OT, PT, etc. in Embracing Science

I am a pretty new 4th year medical student who has spent a grand total of 1 year on the wards. Despite this paucity of clinical experience, I have now personally seen 2 patients who have had strokes after chiropractors "adjusted" their necks. This is not an unknown phenomenon:

I support vaccines- but I am somewhat surprised that more parents don't

As a medical student, I strongly support vaccination. It works, it's safe, and it doesn't cause autism. But I also understand why many parents don't believe me and the medical community when we beg them to vaccinate their kids.

Medicine has come a long way from "Do No Harm". Now we talk about risks and benefits: and none of our tests, medicines, or procedures are without risks. Increasingly, pharmaceutical companies have been caught concealing those risks from doctors and the public.

The Coming Downfall of Medicine: Scientific Corruption

Some recent news about a(nother) scandal in the pharmaceutical industry has led me to post on something that is critical to the future of medicine and science.

Let me start off by saying that I believe strongly in most medicines. I think the data behind their safety is incontrovertible. But for medicines that were invented recently, that same data would still leave me quite suspicious.

Here's why.

Why Colleges Fail at Punishing Rapists, and a Radical Idea for Justice

Sexual Assault on campus is problem that has been receiving unprecedented amounts of attention lately.  Just a few days ago, it was announced that 55 colleges are under investigation for failing to adequately handle sexual assault and create a non-discriminatory environment under Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in all institutions that receive federal funding.  It is commonly held that 1 in 4 female students will be assaulted during their time in college, though it must be acknowledged that all such statistics are disputed.  Nevertheless, it is increasingly clear that no American college does anything approaching a decent job of punishing rapists and doing justice to survivors.

Are CT Scans Giving Us All Cancer? If So, Who Should We Sue?

Two doctors, a cardiologist and a radiologist, published an Op-ed in the NYT about how CT scans are giving us all cancer.  They cite a claim that in 2007 the National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimated that CT scans will cause an estimated 29,000 excess cancers and 14,500 excess deaths.  They extrapolate that this means 3 to 5 percent of all future cancers may result from exposure to medical imaging.

This to me is rather overblown.  CT scans are getting better and better, and get better images while using lower and lower doses of radiation.  The percent of cancers from medical imaging is a highly controversial topic, with recent estimates (from an admittedly biased source) coming in at .04%.  Apparently, the higher estimates from the NCI are based off of post-WW2 cancer rates in survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A Medical Perspective on Ohio's "Botched" Executions

The death penalty has been in the news lately, what with a "botched" execution in Ohio, using a 2 drug method that Louisiana has also recently adopted for it's administration of the death penalty.

These changes come on the heels of a new tactic by death penalty opponents: getting European countries to ban their pharmaceutical manufacturers from exporting drugs that may be used to execute people.  These bans were partially responsible for nationwide shortages of several anesthetic drugs a few years ago.  Long story short, propofol, the 'Michael Jackson drug', went into shortage due to the contamination of a major supplier, and a perfect storm of low prices( due it being a generic drug) and extreme difficulties in manufacturing it correctly and with sterility.  Sodium thiopental, the older back-up to propofol, came into demand.  Promptly thereafter, the manufacturer stopped selling it in the US due to it's use in lethal injections, leading to a nationwide shortage of anesthetic drugs and the temporary importation of drugs from Canada.

In any case because of chronic shortages and problems with vein access (more on this later) the traditional method that had been used, a three drug combo of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, has been abandoned in many states.

On Guns and the Misuse of Science

Part 1 of 2, on Science and Gun Control
Part 2 of 2 will focus on more on the logic (or lack thereof) behind many gun control arguments.

Guns are one of the the most emotional topics in the United States today.  They mean such different things to different people.  In a sense, it's nearly useless to use science in the debate, because rather like abortion and civil rights it's not a scientific debate in the first place.  That said, it's deeply annoying when science (or more specifically, statistics) are used to justify any proposed gun policy.  I'm going to focus more on the gun-control side here, because the pro-gun-rights side really ignores the science anyway to cite moral arguments which are futile to argue against- how do you fight with someone's claimed right to defend themselves against others/their government?  And really, it is the pro-gun control advocates who are most guilty of misusing science and really abandoning all logic in their misguided crusade.