Science, wrote Adam Smith back in 1776, “is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.”

Editor’s commentary: In March of 2007 Dr. Darrel Crain had an article published in a biweekly column of a local San Diego newspaper regarding the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine. With the author’s permission, a copy of that article appeared on Planet Chiropractic later that month. Apparently, a local San Diego orthodontist was not happy with the contents of the article that appeared in the San Diego newspaper.

White lightning flashed across the sky as the 2010 Dead Chiropractic Society (DCS) California Jam shaked the foundations of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa California on March 12, 13th, and 14th. The continuing chiropractic education event was loaded full barrel with spizzerinctum. Chiropractors from across the globe, with the majority coming from the state of California, and a healthy number traveling from throughout the United States, dipped themselves in chiropractic philosophy and fellowship, while many renewed continuing education requirements for 2010 relicensing.

It’s a flu-for-all out there. War has been declared on the swine flu by governments around the world. The H1N1 swine flu virus is most notable for its tendency to be drearily lackluster, tame and below average as influenza goes, but on June 11, 2009 the World Health Organization (WHO) pushed the hyper-panic button for the swine flu anyway, triggering a global chain reaction of emergency medical preparations.

Just when the flu “formerly known as swine” was losing its headline luster for being too mild and ordinary a bug, the first global influenza pandemic in 41 years was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO). On June 11, 2009 the WHO raised the pandemic warning to level 6, the highest possible alert.

Would a tax on sugary soft drinks result in improved health benefits for the people of New York? According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the answer may be yes. According to New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Friedan and Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and a professor at Yale University, a sugar tax would result in health benefits no matter how revenue from the taxing of soft drinks would be spent.

My grandfather used to joke, “Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’.” His mathematical jest wasn’t about the flu vaccine, but it pretty well sums up the findings of a new study about flu shots published in the December 2008 Archives of Internal Medicine. Apparently you can cut the dose of the flu shot in half, and it works just as well as injecting a full dose.