Fatherhood, Skeptically

The TV is on a lot at my house; it's one of the things I worry about a lot. For instance, I'll throw on something I've seen before that is kid friendly (more often than not some Sci-Fi show like Star Trek ) when I'm doing chores. The boys don't usually pay attention, unless the theme songs are playing; they love those. But sometimes they do, and then I worry if I'm setting them up for failure. There's precious little published on the effects of screen time on children; both physically and psychologically. Early this year, a review  was published discussing the effect of screen time on obesity rates in children. As nice as it would have been for this to shed some light on any potential dangers, it seems to only have provided minimal understanding. In light of this I thought it would be worthwhile discuss this paper and to overview the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations concerning screen time. As I alluded to before, the study doesn't ...

Today, we're talking about something that I've noticed is a fear among many parents. It is a fear that starts with the letter "F." But it's not a swear word, oh no. Today, we're talking about fluoride. You may think that fluoride is a somewhat closed case; limited to a minority of conspiracy theorists. But this is sadly not the case. Just recently, a study focusing on the effects of removing water fluoridation in the city of Juneau, Alaska was published. The short is that it caused a lot of cavities at great expense to the public. I also hear a lot from various sources that parents fear their kids coming into contact with fluoride. Generally, this comes from two sources: toothpaste and water. There seems to be much less fear surrounding toothpaste though; and all the arguments generally stem from the water fluoridation concerns. Based on that, I'd like to focus on water and discuss the fears, logical missteps, and data associated with them. From what...

I was recently directed to a blog post  via a parent that discussed whether or not mental pharmaceutical treatment was preventing modern prophecy. This interesting perspective is brought by Vironika Tugaleva, a self proclaimed life coach who has authored two self help books. Now, setting aside the obvious differences in Religious beliefs that are likely to come up, the arguments she gives in this post have some clear issues, both factually and, if I'm going to be honest, ethically. Let's dive in to them. Let's begin by looking at the context given for the discussion. An individual named Ken Dickson and his book, detailing his personal experience in dealing with his mental illnesses, that lead her to some interesting conclusions. She makes three observations about Ken's experience: Everyone around him thought he was crazy and dangerous while Ken gained abilities that some people vie to access with daily meditation and ceremony Our current mental health care syst...

Recently, Reuters published an article claiming that the talc Johnson and Johnson used to produce its baby powder, among other things, was highly contaminated with asbestos. They further claimed that J&J knew since the late 1950's.  Considering that baby powder is, after all, used on babies and many parents are likely to become worried about whether or not this is an issue I feel it is a good idea to go over the evidence. The claim that J&J was hiding a carcinogen in their talc products is a pretty extraordinary one. And as Carl Sagan put it, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." It seems even more extraordinary when there are multiple scientists backing up J&J's claims of safety. So does Reuters have the evidence to back it? Sadly, it seems they do. The strongest piece of evidence presented are the reports from outside labs, as early as 1957, that show detectable amounts of asbestos minerals in the talc. The 1957 and 1958 reports ...

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume most everyone knows what asthma is. Basically, it is when you have a reaction that causes your lung airways to become inflamed, causing a decrease in lung function. Given the sudden onset of asthma attacks, the highly effective medications, and the necessity of, you know, breathing it never occurred to me that parents would ever dabble into woo where asthma was involved. Boy was I wrong. As I've mentioned, I'm a member of a local skeptic group. One of the members gave me an example she came across of a parent giving, frankly, wildly inappropriate suggestions for the treatment of an asthmatic child. We'll discuss those in a moment. First, lets discuss that which elicited the response. A parent was distressed that her child didn't seem to be improving with normal treatment. Additionally, she was concerned that her counter, "looked like a pharmacy." Now, given the time frame she provided and the lack of other medi...