Categories
Bioethics Clinical trials Medicine

Institutional review boards overreaching?

Institutional review boards (IRBs) are the cornerstone of the protection of human subjects in modern biomedical research. Mandated by the federal government in the 1970’s in the wake of research abuses of the 20th century, in particular the the horrors of the infamous Nazi biomedical experiments during World War II that were documented in during […]

Categories
Bioethics History Holocaust Medicine

Eugenics and involuntary euthanasia

While I am on vacation, I’m reprinting a number of “Classic Insolence” posts to keep the blog active while I’m gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I’m guessing that quite a few of my […]

Categories
Autism Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

One year later: Selective outrage over treatment-related deaths

Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to “cure” his autism. Today, as I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file […]

Categories
Bioethics Medicine

Refused treatment due to a practitioner’s religious beliefs

Via Kevin, MD, here’s a Washington Post article describing how the religious beliefs of health care practitioners result in the denial of care. Here are some examples:

Categories
Autism Bioethics Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Anti-mercury warriors descending further into the depths

Damn you, Kathleen. Every time I think that I can give the whole mercury/autism thing a rest for a while and move on to less infuriating pastures, you keep finding things that keep dragging me back to the pit of pseudoscience inhabited by Dr. Mark Geier and his son David. The first time around, Kathleen […]