Podcasts about risky medicine

Ep. 42 — A voiceless young clubfoot patient grows into one of the most outspoken and renowned vaccine advocates in the world / Dr. Paul Offit, Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. When Dr. Paul Offit was five years old he got surgery for clubfoot and was sent to recover at a chronic care facility in Baltimore which was also a polio ward. He spent six lonely weeks there, feeling like a prisoner, with virtually no distractions, recreation, or visitors like many of the polio patients in that ward. "It was hell. This was the mid-1950s, it was a polio ward, people were scared of polio. There was one visiting hour a week on Sundays from 2:00 to 3:00. My mother was pregnant with my brother and had a complication, so she was unable to visit. My father who traveled often as a salesman, he tried to visit me actually on one of the hours that wasn't permitted, and from then on he wasn't allowed to visit me,” remembers Dr. Offit. "As a consequence, no one visited me, and you know, I just remember that ward, my bed was right next to a window that looked down onto the front door of the hospital. I just remember staring out that window waiting for somebody to come and save me." That formative childhood experience put Dr. Offit on the path to becoming one of the most renowned vaccine advocates in the world. The recipient of many honors and awards, Dr. Offit is Professor of Pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a co-inventor of the #rotavirus vaccine, estimated to save hundreds of lives of children every day. Offit has published more than 180 papers in medical and scientific journals and is a prolific author of medical narratives including Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure which put him in the cross-hairs of the powerful, well-connected, and well-funded anti-vaccine coalitions. His willingness to publicly take on the anti-vaxxers has made Offit the frequent target of intimidation and regular death threats. Offit currently is a member of an NIH-led #COVID-19 vaccine innovation group. The sweeping public private partnership between federal researchers and 16 pharmaceutical companies is called Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines or ACTIV. Offit believes there will be several #coronavirus vaccines soon and that the virulence of this virus will upend the traditional long FDA drug approval process, with both good and bad consequences. "So I think this is going to play out in one of two ways. There will be a vaccine. I think there will be a vaccine soon. I think not a vaccine, I think there's going to be several vaccines, or many vaccines, used in countries throughout the world. Then we'll learn about it, after it's already out there, I think then we'll learn about it. It'll play out one of two ways, it'll be remarkably effective, stop the spread of this awful virus. That is the only way to stop the spread. I mean population immunity will only be achieved by a vaccine. It's not going to be achieved by natural infection, because it never is,” says Offit. "Either the vaccines will be a hero, much as in the movie Contagion, when the vaccine was the hero of that movie. Or because things have been compressed and pushed quickly, there will be a side effect that will be severe that people hadn't anticipated, and that could make people question whether we have done this the right way." Read the Transcript Download the PDF Chitra Ragavan: When Dr Paul Offit was five years old he was sent to a polio ward to recover from clubfoot surgery. He spent six weeks in the ward surrounded by young children suffering from polio. That formative childhood experience put Dr Offit on the path to becoming one of the most renowned vaccine advocates in the world. Chitra Ragavan: Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan, and this is When it Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory,

Susan Cayleff's Nature's Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) offers a fascinating alternative to the development of allopathic orthodoxy in the twentieth-century United States. By following Naturopathy from its nineteenth-century origins in the popular health movement through debates in the 1970s, Cayleff sheds light on an enduring critique of the vision of medicine institutionalized by Progressive public health reformers. The holistic medicine proffered by naturopaths drew from a variety of sources and lacked a common theoretical basis; it required closer collaboration between practitioner and patient for gradual cures in the face of medical complexity, a scenario reminiscent of an increasing portion of today's medical practice, as Robert Aronowitz points out in Risky Medicine. However, Cayleff shows not merely a transhistorical struggle of self-determination, but rather shifting cultural and political grounds on which such different ideological battles were waged and heterodox practices staged. Notably, she highlights how naturopathy empowered female practitioners to work in line with their politics, and gave them access to medical power precluded by the medical establishment. This book is a great read for historians of medicine, countercultural movements, and professionalization. This is the first of a pair of interviews on alternative medicine: for a rhetorical approach to how notions of evidence are invoked to demarcate between alternative and mainstream medical practice, look out for my forthcoming interview with Colleen Derkatch on her book, Bounding Biomedicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susan Cayleff’s Nature’s Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) offers a fascinating alternative to the development of allopathic orthodoxy in the twentieth-century United States. By following Naturopathy from its nineteenth-century origins in the popular health movement through debates in the 1970s, Cayleff sheds light on an enduring critique of the vision of medicine institutionalized by Progressive public health reformers. The holistic medicine proffered by naturopaths drew from a variety of sources and lacked a common theoretical basis; it required closer collaboration between practitioner and patient for gradual cures in the face of medical complexity, a scenario reminiscent of an increasing portion of today’s medical practice, as Robert Aronowitz points out in Risky Medicine. However, Cayleff shows not merely a transhistorical struggle of self-determination, but rather shifting cultural and political grounds on which such different ideological battles were waged and heterodox practices staged. Notably, she highlights how naturopathy empowered female practitioners to work in line with their politics, and gave them access to medical power precluded by the medical establishment. This book is a great read for historians of medicine, countercultural movements, and professionalization. This is the first of a pair of interviews on alternative medicine: for a rhetorical approach to how notions of evidence are invoked to demarcate between alternative and mainstream medical practice, look out for my forthcoming interview with Colleen Derkatch on her book, Bounding Biomedicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susan Cayleff’s Nature’s Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) offers a fascinating alternative to the development of allopathic orthodoxy in the twentieth-century United States. By following Naturopathy from its nineteenth-century origins in the popular health movement through debates in the 1970s, Cayleff sheds light on an enduring critique of the vision of medicine institutionalized by Progressive public health reformers. The holistic medicine proffered by naturopaths drew from a variety of sources and lacked a common theoretical basis; it required closer collaboration between practitioner and patient for gradual cures in the face of medical complexity, a scenario reminiscent of an increasing portion of today’s medical practice, as Robert Aronowitz points out in Risky Medicine. However, Cayleff shows not merely a transhistorical struggle of self-determination, but rather shifting cultural and political grounds on which such different ideological battles were waged and heterodox practices staged. Notably, she highlights how naturopathy empowered female practitioners to work in line with their politics, and gave them access to medical power precluded by the medical establishment. This book is a great read for historians of medicine, countercultural movements, and professionalization. This is the first of a pair of interviews on alternative medicine: for a rhetorical approach to how notions of evidence are invoked to demarcate between alternative and mainstream medical practice, look out for my forthcoming interview with Colleen Derkatch on her book, Bounding Biomedicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susan Cayleff’s Nature’s Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) offers a fascinating alternative to the development of allopathic orthodoxy in the twentieth-century United States. By following Naturopathy from its nineteenth-century origins in the popular health movement through debates in the 1970s, Cayleff sheds light on an enduring critique of the vision of medicine institutionalized by Progressive public health reformers. The holistic medicine proffered by naturopaths drew from a variety of sources and lacked a common theoretical basis; it required closer collaboration between practitioner and patient for gradual cures in the face of medical complexity, a scenario reminiscent of an increasing portion of today’s medical practice, as Robert Aronowitz points out in Risky Medicine. However, Cayleff shows not merely a transhistorical struggle of self-determination, but rather shifting cultural and political grounds on which such different ideological battles were waged and heterodox practices staged. Notably, she highlights how naturopathy empowered female practitioners to work in line with their politics, and gave them access to medical power precluded by the medical establishment. This book is a great read for historians of medicine, countercultural movements, and professionalization. This is the first of a pair of interviews on alternative medicine: for a rhetorical approach to how notions of evidence are invoked to demarcate between alternative and mainstream medical practice, look out for my forthcoming interview with Colleen Derkatch on her book, Bounding Biomedicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susan Cayleff’s Nature’s Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) offers a fascinating alternative to the development of allopathic orthodoxy in the twentieth-century United States. By following Naturopathy from its nineteenth-century origins in the popular health movement through debates in the 1970s, Cayleff sheds light on an enduring critique of the vision of medicine institutionalized by Progressive public health reformers. The holistic medicine proffered by naturopaths drew from a variety of sources and lacked a common theoretical basis; it required closer collaboration between practitioner and patient for gradual cures in the face of medical complexity, a scenario reminiscent of an increasing portion of today’s medical practice, as Robert Aronowitz points out in Risky Medicine. However, Cayleff shows not merely a transhistorical struggle of self-determination, but rather shifting cultural and political grounds on which such different ideological battles were waged and heterodox practices staged. Notably, she highlights how naturopathy empowered female practitioners to work in line with their politics, and gave them access to medical power precluded by the medical establishment. This book is a great read for historians of medicine, countercultural movements, and professionalization. This is the first of a pair of interviews on alternative medicine: for a rhetorical approach to how notions of evidence are invoked to demarcate between alternative and mainstream medical practice, look out for my forthcoming interview with Colleen Derkatch on her book, Bounding Biomedicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susan Cayleff's Nature's Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) offers a fascinating alternative to the development of allopathic orthodoxy in the twentieth-century United States. By following Naturopathy from its nineteenth-century origins in the popular health movement through debates in the 1970s, Cayleff sheds light on an enduring critique of the vision of medicine institutionalized by Progressive public health reformers. The holistic medicine proffered by naturopaths drew from a variety of sources and lacked a common theoretical basis; it required closer collaboration between practitioner and patient for gradual cures in the face of medical complexity, a scenario reminiscent of an increasing portion of today's medical practice, as Robert Aronowitz points out in Risky Medicine. However, Cayleff shows not merely a transhistorical struggle of self-determination, but rather shifting cultural and political grounds on which such different ideological battles were waged and heterodox practices staged. Notably, she highlights how naturopathy empowered female practitioners to work in line with their politics, and gave them access to medical power precluded by the medical establishment. This book is a great read for historians of medicine, countercultural movements, and professionalization. This is the first of a pair of interviews on alternative medicine: for a rhetorical approach to how notions of evidence are invoked to demarcate between alternative and mainstream medical practice, look out for my forthcoming interview with Colleen Derkatch on her book, Bounding Biomedicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/medicine

Statistics have been on the minds of more people than usual in the run-up and post-mortem of this past U.S. presidential election; some feel as though they were misled by numbers intended to lend a modicum of certainty to the complex calculus of modern life. But while election predictions come and go, the “empire of chance” lays siege to more and more aspects of daily life, alongside increasing possibilities for technological intervention–nowhere, perhaps, is this more clear than in medicine. Robert Aronowitz’s Risky Medicine: Our Quest to Cure Fear and Uncertainty (University of Chicago Press, 2015) is both a nuanced and accessible exploration of the historical transformation of risk in modern biomedicine. Through a series of case studies and broader reflections on the ways in which modern medicine has become “risky,” Aronowitz teases out salient features of an increasingly complex system of interventions and indicators. In the book, Aronowitz defines three key aspects of our modern “risky medicine.” The first one discussed is a converged experience of risk and disease, exemplified in cancer screening in which bodies-at-risk can be subject to similar treatment and prevention regimes as those marked by a chronic condition or trying to prevent remission. Another aspect is the notion of risk reduction standing in place of efficacy for the psychological and social work it performs, which provides some explanation for the costliness of American medicine relative to the outcomes it achieves. Finally, Aronowitz argues that risk interventions have been driven by expansion of the medical market, and calls upon policymakers to become aware of the control pharmaceutical companies have in the generation of new health risks and the data to support them. One way of understanding Aronowitz’s contribution is to contextualize it within the trajectory of sociological work on risk in modern society. Originally published in 1986 (in German), Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity was a watershed book for the understanding of modernity and technological change. Much of Beck’s account is concerned with environmental risks; the book came out on the heels of the Three Mile Island and Bhopal disasters. However, Beck’s take on medicine is somewhat lacking. Beck presciently calls attention to the “reflexive market strategy” of pharmaceutical companies, in which they profit from self-produced risks–echoing the third aspect of “risky medicine’–but misses its more immediate social and psychological dimensions, stating merely that the rise of chronic disease is evidence of a divergence of diagnosis and therapy. Aronowitz’s case studies suggest even more immediate consequences at hand. The importance of Risky Medicine is evident in how it disaggregates the changing landscape of health and medicine from an inexorable creep of modernity, spelling out the logic subjecting more bodies to greater interventions and recovering the relationship between experience and an ambivalent, anticipatory social order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Statistics have been on the minds of more people than usual in the run-up and post-mortem of this past U.S. presidential election; some feel as though they were misled by numbers intended to lend a modicum of certainty to the complex calculus of modern life. But while election predictions come and go, the “empire of chance” lays siege to more and more aspects of daily life, alongside increasing possibilities for technological intervention–nowhere, perhaps, is this more clear than in medicine. Robert Aronowitz’s Risky Medicine: Our Quest to Cure Fear and Uncertainty (University of Chicago Press, 2015) is both a nuanced and accessible exploration of the historical transformation of risk in modern biomedicine. Through a series of case studies and broader reflections on the ways in which modern medicine has become “risky,” Aronowitz teases out salient features of an increasingly complex system of interventions and indicators. In the book, Aronowitz defines three key aspects of our modern “risky medicine.” The first one discussed is a converged experience of risk and disease, exemplified in cancer screening in which bodies-at-risk can be subject to similar treatment and prevention regimes as those marked by a chronic condition or trying to prevent remission. Another aspect is the notion of risk reduction standing in place of efficacy for the psychological and social work it performs, which provides some explanation for the costliness of American medicine relative to the outcomes it achieves. Finally, Aronowitz argues that risk interventions have been driven by expansion of the medical market, and calls upon policymakers to become aware of the control pharmaceutical companies have in the generation of new health risks and the data to support them. One way of understanding Aronowitz’s contribution is to contextualize it within the trajectory of sociological work on risk in modern society. Originally published in 1986 (in German), Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity was a watershed book for the understanding of modernity and technological change. Much of Beck’s account is concerned with environmental risks; the book came out on the heels of the Three Mile Island and Bhopal disasters. However, Beck’s take on medicine is somewhat lacking. Beck presciently calls attention to the “reflexive market strategy” of pharmaceutical companies, in which they profit from self-produced risks–echoing the third aspect of “risky medicine’–but misses its more immediate social and psychological dimensions, stating merely that the rise of chronic disease is evidence of a divergence of diagnosis and therapy. Aronowitz’s case studies suggest even more immediate consequences at hand. The importance of Risky Medicine is evident in how it disaggregates the changing landscape of health and medicine from an inexorable creep of modernity, spelling out the logic subjecting more bodies to greater interventions and recovering the relationship between experience and an ambivalent, anticipatory social order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Statistics have been on the minds of more people than usual in the run-up and post-mortem of this past U.S. presidential election; some feel as though they were misled by numbers intended to lend a modicum of certainty to the complex calculus of modern life. But while election predictions come and go, the “empire of chance” lays siege to more and more aspects of daily life, alongside increasing possibilities for technological intervention–nowhere, perhaps, is this more clear than in medicine. Robert Aronowitz's Risky Medicine: Our Quest to Cure Fear and Uncertainty (University of Chicago Press, 2015) is both a nuanced and accessible exploration of the historical transformation of risk in modern biomedicine. Through a series of case studies and broader reflections on the ways in which modern medicine has become “risky,” Aronowitz teases out salient features of an increasingly complex system of interventions and indicators. In the book, Aronowitz defines three key aspects of our modern “risky medicine.” The first one discussed is a converged experience of risk and disease, exemplified in cancer screening in which bodies-at-risk can be subject to similar treatment and prevention regimes as those marked by a chronic condition or trying to prevent remission. Another aspect is the notion of risk reduction standing in place of efficacy for the psychological and social work it performs, which provides some explanation for the costliness of American medicine relative to the outcomes it achieves. Finally, Aronowitz argues that risk interventions have been driven by expansion of the medical market, and calls upon policymakers to become aware of the control pharmaceutical companies have in the generation of new health risks and the data to support them. One way of understanding Aronowitz's contribution is to contextualize it within the trajectory of sociological work on risk in modern society. Originally published in 1986 (in German), Ulrich Beck's Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity was a watershed book for the understanding of modernity and technological change. Much of Beck's account is concerned with environmental risks; the book came out on the heels of the Three Mile Island and Bhopal disasters. However, Beck's take on medicine is somewhat lacking. Beck presciently calls attention to the “reflexive market strategy” of pharmaceutical companies, in which they profit from self-produced risks–echoing the third aspect of “risky medicine'–but misses its more immediate social and psychological dimensions, stating merely that the rise of chronic disease is evidence of a divergence of diagnosis and therapy. Aronowitz's case studies suggest even more immediate consequences at hand. The importance of Risky Medicine is evident in how it disaggregates the changing landscape of health and medicine from an inexorable creep of modernity, spelling out the logic subjecting more bodies to greater interventions and recovering the relationship between experience and an ambivalent, anticipatory social order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/medicine

Statistics have been on the minds of more people than usual in the run-up and post-mortem of this past U.S. presidential election; some feel as though they were misled by numbers intended to lend a modicum of certainty to the complex calculus of modern life. But while election predictions come and go, the “empire of chance” lays siege to more and more aspects of daily life, alongside increasing possibilities for technological intervention–nowhere, perhaps, is this more clear than in medicine. Robert Aronowitz’s Risky Medicine: Our Quest to Cure Fear and Uncertainty (University of Chicago Press, 2015) is both a nuanced and accessible exploration of the historical transformation of risk in modern biomedicine. Through a series of case studies and broader reflections on the ways in which modern medicine has become “risky,” Aronowitz teases out salient features of an increasingly complex system of interventions and indicators. In the book, Aronowitz defines three key aspects of our modern “risky medicine.” The first one discussed is a converged experience of risk and disease, exemplified in cancer screening in which bodies-at-risk can be subject to similar treatment and prevention regimes as those marked by a chronic condition or trying to prevent remission. Another aspect is the notion of risk reduction standing in place of efficacy for the psychological and social work it performs, which provides some explanation for the costliness of American medicine relative to the outcomes it achieves. Finally, Aronowitz argues that risk interventions have been driven by expansion of the medical market, and calls upon policymakers to become aware of the control pharmaceutical companies have in the generation of new health risks and the data to support them. One way of understanding Aronowitz’s contribution is to contextualize it within the trajectory of sociological work on risk in modern society. Originally published in 1986 (in German), Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity was a watershed book for the understanding of modernity and technological change. Much of Beck’s account is concerned with environmental risks; the book came out on the heels of the Three Mile Island and Bhopal disasters. However, Beck’s take on medicine is somewhat lacking. Beck presciently calls attention to the “reflexive market strategy” of pharmaceutical companies, in which they profit from self-produced risks–echoing the third aspect of “risky medicine’–but misses its more immediate social and psychological dimensions, stating merely that the rise of chronic disease is evidence of a divergence of diagnosis and therapy. Aronowitz’s case studies suggest even more immediate consequences at hand. The importance of Risky Medicine is evident in how it disaggregates the changing landscape of health and medicine from an inexorable creep of modernity, spelling out the logic subjecting more bodies to greater interventions and recovering the relationship between experience and an ambivalent, anticipatory social order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should women get routine mammograms? Should men get regular PSA exams? Robert Aronowitz of the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Risky Medicine talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the increasing focus on risk reduction rather than health itself as a goal. Aronowitz discusses the social and political forces that push us toward more preventive testing even when those tests have not been shown to be effective. Aronowitz's perspective is a provocative look at the opportunity cost of risk-reduction.

In a change to our schedule, Dr Paul Offit will be our guest to discuss Vaccine myth and fact as well as the prevalence of the Anti-Vax movement.Paul A. Offit, MD is the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a recipient of many awards including the J. Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics from the University of Maryland Medical School, the Young Investigator Award in Vaccine Development from the Infectious Disease Society of America, and a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health.Dr. Offit has published more than 150 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety. He is also the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq, recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC; for this achievement Dr. Offit received the Luigi Mastroianni and William Osler Awards from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the Charles Mérieux Award from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases; and was honored by Bill and Melinda Gates during the launch of their Foundation’s Living Proof Project for global health.In 2009, Dr. Offit received the President’s Certificate for Outstanding Service from the American Academy of Pediatrics. In 2011, Dr. Offit received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Biologics Industry Organization (BIO), the David E. Rogers Award from the American Association of Medical Colleges, the Odyssey Award from the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, and was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.In 2012, Dr. Offit received the Distinguished Medical Achievement Award from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Drexel Medicine Prize in Translational Medicine from the Drexel University College of Medicine.In 2013, Dr. Offit received the Maxwell Finland award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the Distinguished Alumnus award from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and the Innovators in Health Award from the Group Health Foundation.In 2015, Dr. Offit won the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Dr Offit was a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation and the Foundation for Vaccine Research.He is also the author of six medical narratives: The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to Today’s Growing Vaccine Crisis (Yale University Press, 2005), Vaccinated: One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases (HarperCollins, 2007), for which he won an award from the American Medical Writers Association, Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure (Columbia University Press, 2008), Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All (Basic Books, 2011), which was selected by Kirkus Reviews and Booklist as one of the best non-fiction books of the year, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine (HarperCollins, 2013), which won the Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking from the Center for Skeptical Inquiry and was selected by National Public Radio as one of the best books of 2013, and Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine (Basic Books, 2015), selected by the New York Times Book Review as an “Editor’s Choice” book in April 2015.TWL website : http://www.trollingwithlogic.com/TWL facebook group : http://on.fb.me/TZwgy3TWL twitter : https://twitter.com/TrollingWLogicTWL facebook page : http://on.fb.me/1Eq3b8kSubscribe to the podcast:-Feedburner: http://tinyurl.com/twl-feed-burnItunes         : http://tinyurl.com/twl-itunesStitcher       : http://tinyurl.com/twl-stitcher Podbean     : http://tinyurl.com/twl-podbeanPodfeed      : http://tinyurl.com/twl-podfeed

Zombies, aliens, Bigfoot, oh my!! We've covered - or rather uncovered - them all and more on Skeptic Check, our monthly look of critical thinking. And now we've collected enough strange encounters to assemble a sordid retrospective of sorts. Sharpen your brain, it's Skeptic Check, Beast Of. But don't take our word for it! Guests: Phil Plait - Skeptic and keeper of Discover Magazine's blog, badastronomy.com Bruce Hood - Cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and author of The Science of Superstition: How the Developing Brain Creates Supernatural Beliefs Susan Jacoby - Author of The Age of American Unreason Steve Silberman - Contributing editor, Wired Magazine, author of “The Placebo Problem” in the September 2009 issue Mary Pope-Handy - Estate Agent, Silicon Valley and keeper of the website hauntedrealestate.com Jim Underdown - Executive Director, Center for Inquiry, West – Los Angeles Paul Offit - Pediatrician, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and author of Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure Stephen Schneider - Climate scientist, Stanford University Brendan Riley - Assistant professor of English, Columbia College, Chicago Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zombies, aliens, Bigfoot, oh my!! We've covered - or rather uncovered - them all and more on Skeptic Check, our monthly look of critical thinking. And now we've collected enough strange encounters to assemble a sordid retrospective of sorts. Sharpen your brain, it's Skeptic Check, Beast Of. But don't take our word for it! Guests: Phil Plait - Skeptic and keeper of Discover Magazine’s blog, badastronomy.com Bruce Hood - Cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and author of The Science of Superstition: How the Developing Brain Creates Supernatural Beliefs Susan Jacoby - Author of The Age of American Unreason Steve Silberman - Contributing editor, Wired Magazine, author of “The Placebo Problem” in the September 2009 issue Mary Pope-Handy - Estate Agent, Silicon Valley and keeper of the website hauntedrealestate.com Jim Underdown - Executive Director, Center for Inquiry, West – Los Angeles Paul Offit - Pediatrician, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and author of Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure Stephen Schneider - Climate scientist, Stanford University Brendan Riley - Assistant professor of English, Columbia College, Chicago Descripción en español

Recently, there was another nail in the coffin for vaccine skeptics. The British medical journal The Lancet took the dramatic step of retracting a 1998 paper that lies at the root of modern vaccine denialism. Authored by a doctor named Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues, it was heavily touted as having uncovered a new cause of autism—the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, or, the MMR vaccine. Not so fast. Twelve years later, there are more problems with the paper than you can count—and yet somehow, it managed to spawn a movement. In this conversation with host Chris Mooney, Dr. Paul Offit— author of  Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure—discusses the state of the vaccine skeptic movement in light of this latest news. In particular, Offit explores why the tides may be turning on the movement—as well as the grave public health consequences of ongoing vaccine avoidance. Paul A. Offit, MD is the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition, Dr. Offit is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Offit has published more than 130 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety. He is also the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq, recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC. Dr Offit was a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation, and is the author of five books, the latest of which is Autism’s False Prophets.

I have included Episode 25 of Books and Ideas in the feed for the Brain Science Podcast because it is a discussion of the alleged connection between vaccines and autism. In this episode I interview Dr. Paul Offit, author of "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure." Despite overwhelming scientific evidence against a relationship between vaccines and autism, vaccine opponents continue to frighten and confuse parents. Meanwhile we are beginning to see the re-emergence of preventable and potentially life-threatening diseases among the increasing numbers of unvaccinated children.Dr. Offit's book provides a thorough discussion of the science and politics of the controversy. I hope this interview with motivate you to read "Autism's False Prophets" and to share it with others. Download Episode For detailed show notes go to http:gingercampbellmd.com/.Send email to docartemis@gmail.com.Download Episode

Episode 25 of Books and Ideas is an interview with Dr. Paul A. Offit, author of "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure." The scientific evidence shows no connection between vaccines and autism yet opponents of vaccination continue to encourage parents to refuse to vaccinate their children against potentially life threatening diseases.In this episode we consider the evidence for vaccine safety and examine the factors that fuel the on-going controversy. Children are already dying from preventable diseases like measles and hemophilis infuenza (Hib) meningitis, so it is vital that parents be informed about the unnecessary risks faced by unvaccinated children.For detailed show notes and episode transcripts go to http://booksandideas.com. Send email to gincampbell at mac dot com.