Sysiphus Speaks

The FDA recently announced it would send field staff out to collect samples of commercially-manufactured raw dog and cat food. The samples will be analyzed for Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli, all of which have been found in raw pet food, in the animals who eat it, in their feces, on their bodies after eating it, in the areas they inhabit, and on their owner's bodies. Not surprisingly, this has led to both pet and human infection and illness.

The 2015 legislative sessions have ended in many states and others are drawing to a close in June. (Some legislative sessions are longer and a legislatures meet year-round, but we're not concerned about those here.) Chiropractors, as is usual, had a number of practice expansion and other favorable bills introduced across the country.

It is rare for pseudo-medical providers to recognize that their interventions can cause harm. You see this in the lack of hand hygiene and gloves in any of the videos or photographs of the pseudo-medicines.

The Nevada Legislature just passed a "Quack Full Employment Act." The official purpose of this legislation is to protect purveyors of "wellness services" from prosecution for the unlicensed practice of medicine or some other health care practice, like chiropractic or massage, for which a state license is required.

Effect of a soy isoflavone supplement on lung function and clinical outcomes in patients with poorly controlled asthma: a randomized clinical trial was published this week in JAMA.

Bottom line:

Among adults and children aged 12 years or older with poorly controlled asthma while taking a controller medication, use of a soy isoflavone supplement, compared with placebo, did not result in improved lung function or clinical outcomes. These findings suggest that this supplement should not be used for patients with poorly controlled asthma.

Last year, two young men died after overdosing on caffeine powder. One was an 18-year-old high school student trying to stay awake for class projects coming due. Another was a newlywed, recently graduated from college. Their deaths were a wake-up call to the FDA.

I had never heard of Nasal Cranial Release Therapy. It is a mutant combination chiropractic and craniosacral therapy and goes by a variety of other names including

Endonasal Technique, Nasal Cranial Release, Bilateral Nasal Specific Technique, Functional Cranial Release, and Neurocranial Release

Balloons are inserted in the nose and inflated to realign cranial bones. Really.

But neither post does the treatment of chronic lyme justice. For that you need Suffering from the anguish of chronic Lyme disease, a case of horrible reporting about mind-boggling medical care.  It is one thing to write about these cases in the aggregate, it is quite another to see what happens to another human.

The California Senate voted by a wide margin to end the state's personal belief and religious exemptions to childhood immunizations on Thursday. The measure now moves to the Assembly and a new round of hearings, which promise to be contentious. If passed, California would become only the third state in the country allowing only medical exemptions.

The purpose of Institutional Review Boards, IRB, is to protect patients, especially vulnerable patients such as children. To quote the FDA

the clinical investigation may proceed only if: The IRB finds and documents that the clinical investigation presents a reasonable opportunity to further the understanding, prevention, or alleviation of a serious problem affecting the health or welfare of children…

When it comes to pseudo-medicine they fail. All the time. I can see no way that acupuncture could ever meet that criteria. Especially for post-operative pain.