Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

There will be only sporadic (or, more likely, no) blogging from now until January 3 (unless I decide to use Instant Blog Post during my absence). Like many, my wife and I are going home to visit family. I'm guessing most people have better things to do this time of year than to read my ramblings anyway.

Thanks to all who've started reading regularly. I hope it's been worth your while. I can't believe I've actually accumulated some regular readers in less than two weeks. I'll pick up where I left off after I get back and try to make it even more worth your while to check me out. Here are a few topics/ideas in my queue. (Yes, this is a blatant plug so that, hopefully, you'll want to check back here; if you've been reading from the beginning, you'll know I can be as blatant as any blogger in self-promotion.) A very partial (and ever-changing) list:

• Clinical trials
• The Nazi biomedical vision and how it led to Auschwitz
• Battling quackery in conventional medicine
• How alt-med purveyors scare patients away from chemotherapy and radiation therapy
• What is a scientific "theory"?
• Hate speech laws
  
• Why Creationism is not science
• Holocaust "revisionism" versus Holocaust denial
• Stem cell research
• Conspiracy theories in alternative medicine
• Do Holocaust deniers really believe what they say about the Holocaust?
• Logical fallacies loved by pseudoscientists and Holocaust deniers
• Levels of medical evidence
• Treating chronic pain versus the "War on Drugs"
• Why ineffective alternative medicine is not "harmless"
• How and why alternative medicine is misrepresented in the media
• How clinical trials are spun in the media and by drug companies
  

It may well take me months to get through these and the other ideas I have floating around in my fevered brain. Interspersed with these will very likely be my usual random commentary on anything that happens to strike my fancy, commentary on specific alt-med and conventional therapies, as well as perhaps some pieces on how science is done in the "real" world--if you can call my lab the "real" world. Eventually, I may start making the occasional political post, in order to get a shot at the Weblog Awards (which, sadly, don't have an award category for medical or science blogs, as I pointed out early on when I started blogging). In the meantime, if you've just discovered Respectful Insolence (a.k.a. Orac Knows), feel free to check out the archives and see if you like what I've been doing so far. Given how new this blog is, they aren't (yet) extensive.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.