"Heads I win, Tails You Lose"

This is an excellent article by Richard Wiseman on psi research and how studies are poorly designed, statistics are misused, and results are distorted to support psi research. Many of these problems are also common to many types of CAM research and unfortunately, sometimes other medical researh as well, so this is a useful article to keep in mind when evaluating medical claims. Basically, it illustrates many things which pseudoscience and sometimes just bad science does which should be kept in mind when critically evaluating claims.

Raw Milk; the myths and the evidence.

I wanted to draw attention to a new website dealing with the scientific evidence relating to human consumption of raw milk. There are many claims that raw milk is better than pasteurized milk, most of which are based on anecdotes and testimonials, and not on stronger evidence. On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence that bacterial contamination of raw milk can cause serious illness and even death in humans, especially in susceptible people such as very young children, the elderly, and anyone with a suppressed immune system. While some of the bacteria which commonly occurred in raw milk (bovine tuberculosis and Brucella) have been eliminated from livestock in  the United States and much of Europe, there are still several types of bacteria that can cause serious illness, especially in high risk groups. This is important because some of the claims  made for raw milk relate specifically to health claims about children which are based on poor or no evidence. Raw milk may be an especially serious risk to urban or suburban children who may have no previous exposure to these bacteria. In contrast, children raised on farms probably receive some passive transfer of immunity from their mothers, and may also be constantly exposed to similar bacteria, allowing them to develop immunity. This does not mean that farm children never experience these illnesses, but the immune resistance of children who live away from a farm environment may be lower to these livestock related bacteria.

Real Raw Milk Facts is a new website written by veterinarians, food scientists and epidemiologists which provides the evidence for claims relating to raw milk and the risks of consuming raw milk products. It has an extensive list of scientific references relating to raw milk related disease. If you or someone you know is considering giving yourself or especially children or other susceptible persons raw milk, make sure that you understand that the evidence for benefits from raw milk is poor to non-existent, and the risks of exposure to dangerous bacteria are much higher than they are with pasteurized dairy products.

The Rabies battle continues, in my backyard and yours.

I have posted about the new strain of rabies virus associated with bats but also capable of causing outbreaks in other species such as foxes and skunks a couple of times. There have not been many cases reported in carnivores this year, probably due to the wildlife vaccine program which they did last year. This program involves oral vaccines distributed for foxes, coyotes and raccoons, and a trap and vaccinate program for skunks (unfortunately the oral bait vaccine is not effective in skunks for some reason). The dedicated personnel of the USDA wildlife services rabies management program get the lovely job of trapping and vaccinating skunks in Northern Arizona again this summer to prevent the spread of rabies virus from bats into terrestrial animals again.
Currently they are vaccinating skunks in my neighborhood. I found a trap about 100yards away from my house today, complete with a small skunk hiding in the brush near the trap waiting for darkness before traveling away from cover again.

This skunk was very calm and sleepy during the middle of the day, waiting for nightfall to resume it's normal foraging.

 The ear tags indicate that this skunk has been vaccinated against Rabies.

This program is an interesting example of how science based veterinary medicine can improve the lives of both humans and  animals. Eliminating terrestrial rabies would reduce the risk of exposure for both wild and domestic animals and humans as well. If you have a program like this going on in your area, be sure to express your appreciation of the sometimes unpleasant and nearly always under appreciated work that these people are doing on your behalf.