Mar 21 2012

Comment: Response to “Tarring complementary medicine is anti-choice”

The following is a comment to an opinion piece, “Tarring complementary medicine is anti-choice” written by Kerryn Phelps in Medical Observer.  My comments were published online on 21 March 2012.

I concur with some of the statements in the comments and feel I must support my colleagues who are members of the Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM).

Continue reading

Mar 15 2012

Comment: Homoeopathy, ethics and controversy

Comment to the article “Homeopathy isn’t unethical, it’s just controversial” by Jon Wardle, published in The Conversation.

To be frank, it is really quite simple. Homoeopathy isn’t “controversial”. It does not work. There is no good empiric evidence that it does, plenty of empiric evidence that it doesn’t, and entirely lacks scientific plausibility.

There is a misunderstanding of evidence-based medicine that supportive evidence of an intervention study in an RCT is equivalent to evidence of effectiveness. This is not true. If you do 20 perfectly run RCTs on inert substances using the standard for statistic significance at P < 0.05, you would expect that 1 study would demonstrate a statistically significant result. The point is, RCTs are only really valid when taken in the context of the pre-text probability of the intervention. As has been mentioned many times before, for homoeopathy (the specific intervention) to be true, we must overturn our knowledge of physics and chemistry. Continue reading

Mar 13 2012

Short interview on aspirin on Panacea, 2SER radio

I have a short interview with Nancy Notzon on Panacea, on 2SER radio.  This was broadcast on the show at 1900.  This was based on my aspirin article on The Conversation.

Mar 12 2012

Consulting in General Practice

This revised lecture was first given to medical students in the Primary Care course on Monday 12 March 2012 at The University of New South Wales.

Consulting in general practice (workshop) on Prezi

Mar 12 2012

Monday’s medical myth: take an aspirin a day after you turn 50

The following article was published on The Conversation.

Monday’s medical myth: take an aspirin a day after you turn 50

By Michael Tam, University of New South Wales

Aspirin is a historical marvel. It’s been manufactured for more than a century and is still in widespread use. No other medication can claim as many different narratives and uses as this analgesic – it’s been known as:

  • A traditional medicine – aspirin-like treatments, based on salicylate, have been derived from plants such as willows for millennia
  • An international blockbuster – at the turn of the twentieth century, aspirin was one of the few effective treatments for fever and pain, and was wildly popular (and profitable)
  • A hazard to children – aspirin was recognised in the 1980s as a potential cause of childhood death
  • A modern wonder-drug – aspirin has been resurrected as an important and inexpensive medication for the prevention and treatment of heart attacks and strokes. Continue reading

Mar 05 2012

Absolute cardiovascular disease risk assessment and early intervention

This revised lecture was first given to medical students in the Phase 2: Society and Health term on 5 March 2012, at the University of New South Wales.

Absolute Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment & Early Intervention (Lecture) on Prezi