January 3rd, 2011 → 10:52 am @ Seth Mnookin
As you might have heard, Oprah Winfrey launched her own TV network on New Year’s Day. OWN (the initials stand for Oprah Winfrey Network) took over Discovery Health Channel’s slot with cable providers, and will offer around-the-clock programming designed to teach viewers how to “live your best life.” As Winfrey recently said in the pages of O, her glossy magazine, “My goal in life is to live out the truest expression of myself as a human being.” (more…)
Post Categories: Blog post
December 30th, 2010 → 12:09 pm @ Seth Mnookin
In one of his responses to yesterday’s post on his Twitter feed, Jay Gordon writes:
Seth, only a very small percentage of formula used is not the “standard” variety. Hypoallergenic formula is almost always a last resort. Infant formula increases the incidence of many childhood illnesses and this Pediatrics story adds to that verified list.
I’m assuming this is true — I have no idea what the ratio of hypoallergenic to standard infant formula is, but I’m guessing it’s small — but it is also completely beside the point. (more…)
Post Categories: Blog post
December 30th, 2010 → 11:49 am @ Seth Mnookin
In his blog, the Sports Illustrated writer and all-around genius/great guy Joe Posnanski frequently refers to his commenters as “brilliant readers.” His point is that they often prompt him to look at issues from a different perspective, which improves his ability to create a thought-provoking blog, which prompts more reader comments–you get the idea.
My hope is that the same type of community can be established here. That will undoubtedly be a challenge. Having written a book about baseball, I know sports are a topic about which people can get very emotional…but it’s nothing compared to child-rearing/health-care/vaccine safety/autism. I’ve thought a lot about the best way to oversee/moderate comments — more on that later — but for now, I’m incredibly happy to see that there is already some real dialogue going on. (more…)
Post Categories: Blog post
December 29th, 2010 → 1:42 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Earlier this morning, Jay Gordon, who is perhaps best known as the pediatrician who supported Jenny McCarthy in her belief that the MMR vaccine had contributed to her son’s autism, posted the following tweet: (more…)
Post Categories: Blog post
December 23rd, 2010 → 12:27 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Earlier this morning, Jenny McCarthy’s re-tweeted to her 225,354 followers the following message: “Pertussis vaccine (whooping cough) legal cause of epilepsy/death of boy. This will NOT make news during ‘outbreaks’ http://bit.ly/i20hmR.” That link brings the reader to a post on Age of Autism (one of whose editors was the source of the initial post, which has already been re-tweeted 50 times), which states unequivocally that a young boy named Elias Tembenis “died as a result of a reaction to his DTaP (P = Pertussis/Whooping Cough) vaccination.” Before I get into the multiple problems with such a statement, here’s some background: (more…)
Post Categories: Blog post
December 20th, 2010 → 11:02 am @ Seth Mnookin
Last week, an old high school friend of mine named Krister Johnson posted about my book on his Facebook wall. The result has been an interesting discussion–one of the first comments was, “Except that the way in which vaccines are given today [i.e. the volume within a small time frame – not to mention the ones that shouldn’t be given] is directly related to autism…”
This morning, a friend of Krister’s wrote the following: (more…)
Post Categories: Amish & Internet & thimerosal
December 18th, 2010 → 11:46 am @ Seth Mnookin
To say the NFL’s institutional response to the risks of repeated head trauma has been poor would be a vast understatement. It’s a subject I wrote about for The Boston Globe back in 2007. (The reporter who has been driving this coverage for years is The New York Times‘s Alan Schwarz. It’s not an exaggeration to say that his investigative work and relentless pursuit of this story has done as much or more to influence the national discourse on the subject as anything. For my money, Schwarz’s traumatic brain injury (TBI) reporting has made him one of the country’s best medical reporters. But I digress.)
One factor in football’s foot-dragging on this has been a shocking approach to the problem by the players union. (more…)
Post Categories: Alan Schwarz & NFL & traumatic brain injury
