A chiropractor in Athens, Ohio claims he can heal pain through time travel
. While the details in the story (and on his website) are sketchy, the idea seems to be that he can “reach back” to the time when the injury occurred, and prevent it from happening.
I’m going to buy this guy a pair of clippers and ask him to correct my high-school haircut.
Are you being awakened in the middle of the night by loud noises? You may be suffering from Exploding Head Syndrome!
I bet you didn’t know that physicians used to prescribe orgasms for women as a treatment for hysteria since the days of Hippocrates. 20th century morality did away with the administration of “hysterical paroxysm” in the ’20s.
Item 1 - Tuberculosis infection rates are falling worldwide. Except, of course, for those pesky COMPLETELY UNTREATABLE STRAINS.
Item 2 - The medieval menace known as the plague is making a comeback. Added bonus, it may be on the verge of developing RESISTANCE TO ANTIBIOTICS.
I’ll be in the basement, hoarding food, water and ammunition.
Here’s why it pays to be skeptical, guys. It turns out that the makers of the “male enhancement” pill Enzyte weren’t inflating anything but their claims. The government is prosecuting company officials for conspiring to defraud its customers out of 100 million desperate, small-wanged dollars. From Cincinnati.com:
James Teegarden Jr., the former vice president of operations at Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, explained Tuesday in U.S. District Court how he and others at the company made up much of the content that appeared in Enzyte ads.He said employees of the Forest Park company created fictitious doctors to endorse the pills, fabricated a customer satisfaction survey and made up numbers to back up claims about Enzyte’s effectiveness.
There are a few things about this situation that really stick out.
1) PAY ATTENTION. Slick marketing and customer satisfaction surveys are fine, but if a company can’t or won’t explain to you how its product works, DON’T GIVE THEM MONEY.
2) This is especially true when the company makes “health” claims that are so sensitive. The harder you want something to be true, the easier it is to let yourself believe dubious claims. If a pill claims to fix a heretofore unfixable problem, it’s time to be even more diligent.
3) The only thing classier than conspiring to sell millions of dollars of dubious dick drugs is cutting your mom in on the action. From the article:
Several other company employees, including [the founder's] mother, Harriet, also are charged with participating in the conspiracy.
I also find it insane that, as of February 1st, 2008, the company’s website it still up and running, making the same claims and apparently still taking orders. Why hasn’t the District Court issued an temporary injunction to stop the company from making these (allegedly) fraudulent claims?
Nobody needs an herbal penis pump so badly that they can’t wait a few months. If the Court rules in favor of the company, then let them go back to peddling their pills. In the meantime, why risk letting the company defraud more innocent men? They’re already upset about the size of their junk. The court shouldn’t allow their wallets to be deflated as well.
On the plus side, I finally have a reason to use the “dick” tag non-euphemistically.
Three things I did not know:
1. Dr. Henry Heimlich, purported inventor of the famed and (I shit you not) registered trademark “maneuver” for rescuing choking victims is still alive.
I don’t know why, but I always assumed that such a simple procedure must have been invented in the 19th century. Based on the last name, I pictured a humble Bavarian physician, decked out in lederhosen and suspenders. While knocking back a pint at a rural ale house, he rushed to the aid of one of the town volk who was choking on a bit of bratwurst. Thanks to his quick thinking, his technique became the namesake maneuver, and his improvised flailings (and maybe the bit of horked-up sausage) were preserved for posterity.
As it turns out, the maneuver was first described in the mid-70s. Although it is still taught as a remedy for choking, it isn’t the recommended first treatment. Dr. Heimlich was born in Delaware in 1920, and doesn’t seem to be particularly humble. Or Bavarian.
2. Dr. Heimlich has been dogged by allegations of fraud.
One of Dr. Heimlich’s most persistent critics is his son, Peter Heimlich. Among the allegations he levels against his father is the charge that the famous technique was appropriated from Dr. Heimlich’s long time colleague, Dr. Edward Patrick.
3. Dr. Heimlich may be completely, dangerously, batshit insane.
Dr. Heimlich advocates the use of his system of abdominal thrusts to treat drowning victims, despite much evidence that such use is dangerous and potentially fatal. Most obviously crazy, though, is his insistence that he can cure HIV/AIDS with an injection. Of malaria.
Dr. Heimlich, who has no training as an immunologist, seriously believes that he can cure AIDS, as well as cancer and Lyme disease, by injecting patients with malaria. In support of this hypothesis, he’s conducted ethically suspect trials with HIV patients in China and Africa. One of the conditions of those trials was that participants couldn’t receive any other treatment, either for their HIV or the symptoms of their malaria infections.
This is what I get for relying on Eddie Izzard for information about a public figure.
I’m not about to say that my hour of casual reading amounts to a definitive case, but there is a good bit of evidence of a disconnect between Dr. Heimlich’s self-promoted legacy and the details of his actual career in public health. If you think I’m wrong, feel free to argue.
Finally, an advantage to having delicate external genitalia. German scientists peeked under the schnitzels of 22 subjects, examining cells from previously biopsied testicular tissue. They discovered that, given a few weeks to grow, the cells were able to differentiate into different types, just like stem cells harvested from embryos.
The downside, at least for the ladies, is that it’s unlikely that a corresponding cell type could be harvested from female reproductive bits. That means the production of personalized stem cells, at least by this method, will only be available to men. Women will have to hope that other recent advances, like reprogramming mature cells, are as promising as early results seem to indicate. Or, we could elect a government that doesn’t believe that being thrown away is a more dignified fate for the souls of fertility clinic embryos than being used for lifesaving medical research. That might work.
EDIT: So far, the reprogramming of adult cells has only worked in mice. Thanks to Jenn for the link.
I’ve uncovered the dark secret that the anti-vaxxers don’t want you to know. I have discovered the true cause of increased diagnosis of autism in children. Autism isn’t caused by a long-disused preservative with no significant toxicity, or a conspiracy to slowly poison generations of children with surreptitious injections of harmful chemicals.
Autism is caused by exposure to Jenny McCarthy.
If you’re skeptical, it’s important to keep one thing in mind. The evidence supporting the conclusion that autism is caused by Jenny McCarthy is just as strong as the evidence linking autism to vaccines. Let’s start with some basic statistics.
Studies in the United States and the UK show that the rate of autism diagnosis has increased as much as 20% per year since the early 90s. They conclude that this is most likely caused by a combination of increased awareness, and reclassification of symptoms that had previously been seen as indicators of other conditions.
But here’s something that the investigators missed. Jenny McCarthy’s entertainment career began in 1993, when she landed a cover shoot in Playboy. Since then, she’s managed to sustain herself as a C-list celebrity, actress and, most recently, author of parenting books.
During the time that Jenny McCarthy has captured some fraction of the public’s attention, rates of autism diagnosis have continued to climb. Despite millions of dollars and thousands of hours of research, more and more parents every year are faced with the sad news that their child has been diagnosed with this dreaded, and incurable, developmental disorder.
Parents of children who have been diagnosed with autism are confused, frightened and overwhelmed. They can’t understand what is happening, and why it is happening to their families. McCarthy has worked hard to convince these desperate, vulnerable parents that there is a simple explanation for an otherwise inscrutable illness.
McCarthy’s determined activism is unsurprising. What better way could there be to shift attention from her own terrible secret than making impassioned accusations about dangerous vaccine conspiracies? And to continue to doggedly reiterate the same claims, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
Science has consistently shown that McCarthy’s claims about the dangers of vaccines are incorrect, and based on misinformation and misunderstanding about the manufacture, application and composition of vaccines. The claims that she makes are provably false, yet she clings to them with the resolve of a small child, determined to cast blame for breaking the family cookie jar on an absent sibling.
The most obvious evidence? McCarthy’s son is himself autistic! Who, aside from Jim Carrey, has had more sustained, intimate contact with McCarthy than the son whose diagnosis is the basis for her passionate autism advocacy? Her rate of giving birth to autistic children is, to date, 100%. Clearly, McCarthy has something to hide, and she’s attempting to conceal it in plain sight by loudly blaming modern medicine for something that she is powerless to control.
But she couldn’t suppress the truth forever. As her claims about vaccines become less and less supportable, the pattern becomes more obvious, until the conclusion is inescapable. A generation of parents has been exposed to McCarthy’s television shows, movies and books. Now, their children are paying the price.
Although the exact mechanism is unclear, there can be no doubt that increased exposure of the population to Jenny McCarthy has corresponded with a sharp rise in the diagnosis of autism. For the good of the children and their families, Ms. McCarthy, it’s time to retire from the public eye. Or, alternatively, come up with some evidence, any evidence, showing that vaccines are more likely to cause autism than you are. When you find it, I’m sure Oprah will be waiting to broadcast it.
EDIT: See the excellent new site Stop Jenny McCarthy for more on Jenny McCarthy and her persistent campaign of disinformation.
