Siouxie Wiles
Dr Siouxsie Wiles is a research scientist with a background in medical and environmental microbiology. She has made a career out of combining her twin passions of bioluminescence and microorganisms. After many years working in the UK, she recently relocated to the University of Auckland. Her research is currently focused on Staphylococcus aureus (the hospital superbug MRSA), Streptococcus pyogenes (the flesh-eating bug) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. She is not in the pay of Big Pharma.
Siouxie Wiles
Siouxsie Wiles doesn't find too much humour in a supposedly satirical paper. Twitter exploded recently after Neil Hall, a professor at the University of Liverpool who studies the genomes of the ... (964 words)
Category: Columns
Siouxie Wiles
Siouxsie Wiles takes a look at a new medical journal - available at all good supermarkets. I'm a scientist. I know that the word journal has several meanings, but when I use it I'm referring to a ... (657 words)
Category: Columns
- advertising - alternative health treatments - alternative medicine - complementary medicine -Siouxie Wiles
A new alternative treatment for Alzheimer's doing the rounds seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the underlying science. The title of this piece is a question posed by the 'health ... (634 words)
Category: Columns
- alternative health treatments - biodynamics - alternative medicine - critical appraisal - dietary supplements -Siouxie Wiles
A heartstring-tugging appeal in the NZ Herald doesn't tell the full story. Jesse Bessant is a little boy from Auckland with a very rare brain tumour. He has a ganglioglioma, a tumour that arises from ... (765 words)
Category: Columns
- cancer - charlatans - medicine - doctors - drugs -Siouxie Wiles
Spoiler alert: Don't read if you haven't seen the film Contagion (which I highly recommend) but want to. "Recently, I saw the new movie Contagion which is about the rapid spread of a virus and how it ... (949 words)
Category: Columns
Siouxie Wiles
Proponents of alternative therapies often throw around charges of vested interest when challenged. But often their own interests don't bear scrutiny. As this is the first of what I hope will be a ... (1042 words)
Category: Columns
- alternative health treatments - chemicals - diagnosis techniques - alternative medicine - ayurvedic medicine - complementary medicine -Siouxie Wiles
The world-wide panic over the MMR vaccine was sparked by the actions of one doctor who breached several standards of scientific practice. This article is based on a presentation to the 2010 NZ ... (1927 words)
Category: Columns
- disease - health scares - scientific explanations - critical appraisal - doctors - hysteria - myth - traditional medicine -