I’m off to a conference. Little to no blogging until next week. I’m sure you’ll get along somehow. (I notice my traffic seems to vary almost directly with the energy I put in blogging and commenting on other blogs. I wonder if I can get it all the way to zero this week?)

The “Vital Signs Blog” earns the just-established “Stegosaurus of the Week” award with this post noting that the Mayo Clinic Web site explains (in response to a reader’s question) that there is no scientifiically verifiable link between abortion and risk of later breast cancer. This perpetual fantasy being a mainstay of right-wing propaganda, Vital Signs is concerned, weighs the issues . . . and concludes that the Mayo Clinic is wrong. Because, after all, what do they know about medicine or anything?

Am[az/us]ingly, they pounce on the Clinic’s citation of the definitive study of the issue by the National Cancer Insitute (hacks! – like they’re some sort of experts on cancer!), on the grounds that “the organization has come under fire as politically charged”. (I.e., rightwingers complain that the NCI doesn’t accept their pretend science, which in turn is grounds for dismissal of the NCI by rightwingers, because it has been the focus of complaints.)

So, congratulations Vital Signs Blog. For judging the Mayo Clinic’s knowledge of medicine by your standards, and for regarding a refusal to believe the truth by people who agree with you as evidence supporting your own refusal to believe that same truth, you are officially the Stegosaurus of the Week. Next time try thinking with the cerebral ganglion, not the sacral one.