House - Episode 19 (Season 2)
This episode of House concerns a young faith healer who hears God talk to him, and frankly was better than most people (including me) were expecting. The medicine was interesting and the Wilson/House dynamics intriguing. There was also sex, of course (but not between Wilson and House, get your mind out of the gutter). There are spoilers below, and I probably should have given a spoiler warning before that whole sex thing. Oops.
Boyd, a fifteen year-old faith healer, is in the middle of a church service when he experiences sudden devastating cramping. At the hospital for evaluation, it is unclear at first whether he had abdominal cramping or muscle cramping, so the team works up both. When the x-rays show no intestinal obstruction, they focus on muscle cramping. Cameron notes dilute urine and his blood tests show low sodium. It also comes out in the conversation that Boyd has been hearing God talk to him since he was ten.
The team’s initial thoughts of causes for his cramping include Addison’s Disease (a malfunction of the adrenal glands) and cirrhosis (a liver disease), but his other tests do not support these diagnoses. They talk a little about mental illness and hearing God talk, but leave the issue out of their diagnosing for now. House discovers that Boyd has been drinking several gallons of water per day, and suspects that this water intoxication is what is causing his low sodium, which led to his muscle cramping.
That night Boyd suffers what appears to be a complex partial seizure and stumbles out of his room and down the hospital corridor. (Partial seizures just affect a portion of the brain, as opposed to generalized seizures which affect the entire brain. “Complex” means that Boyd’s consciousness is impaired during the seizure.) Boyd runs into one of Dr. Wilson’s terminally ill cancer patients and lays hands on her and proclaims her cured. Chase manages to drag Boyd back to his room.
The differential diagnosis now includes infection, Wilson’s disease (a disease of copper metabolism), a glycogen storage disease (an inherited metabolic disease), a brain tumor, or tuberous sclerosis. An MRI shows an abnormal area in the frontal lobe that is consistent with tuberous sclerosis. With the help of Dr. Wilson’s “silver tongue,” House talks Boyd into agreeing to surgery for the tuberous sclerosis tumor.
Meanwhile, Dr. Wilson’s cancer patient has gotten better and her tumor has shrunk. When Boyd hears about this, he cancels his surgery. House’s team explores the patient’s history (and apartment) at length to discover if there is any other possible reason for her remission and discover nothing, well, except for the fact that she’s sleeping with Wilson.
Boyd spikes a fever to 103° (that’s 39°C to you metric people) and becomes delirious. Now it seems that not only does Boyd have the tuberous sclerosis, but some kind of infection as well. House wants to perform a lumbar puncture (a spinal tap), but Boyd refuses.
House and Wilson discuss the issue and House suddenly realizes that Boyd must have some kind of viral infection. He passed this on to Wilson’s patient when he touched her, and it is this virus that has shrunken her tumor (but not cured her). House believes it must be herpes, so confronts Boyd who grudgingly undresses revealing a herpetic rash on his buttocks. Thus Boyd has a tumor from the tuberous sclerosis (which is causing his hallucinations of hearing God talk), and herpes encephalitis, which is causing his fever, seizures, and low sodium.
The medicine was fair. There were a few questionable items, but no big errors. First off, when a patient comes in with dilute urine and low sodium, Addison’s and cirrhosis are going to be fairly far down on my list of possibilities. I’d start off looking at his kidneys (which to be fair, Cameron did imply she was going to this), and look at dietary intake of both sodium and water. Fiteen years old is a little late to start exhibiting an inherited metabolic disorder (but not entirely unheard of). The radiation-from-household-appliances-curing-cancer idea was simply ridiculous; radiation therapy uses sepcial wavelengths of specifically focused beams of radiation, not just random entire body radiation. In terms of the lumbar puncture, you could argue either way whether or not they should have done it sooner. Personally I would have, but I could be convinced otherwise (I’ve always lived by the maxim: “If you even think about doing an LP, it means you need to do one.”) The virus-causing-a-tumor-remission makes since theoretically, but there’s never been any proven cases of it actually happening. Finally, I’m a little puzzled as to why Boyd had the rash on his rear end (other than because of the Fox censors). If it were sexually transmitted herpes, as the show implies, then the lesions should have been somewhere more…intimate. As it was, it looked more like shingles, which is a reactivation of the chicken pox virus – which is itself a type of herpes virus, so the tumor-shrinking is still possible. It just wouldn’t have been as salacious (just more logical).
Frankly, I was expecting a great deal of heavy-handed faith versus science diatribes on the non-medical side of the story, and was pleasantly surprised when that didn’t occur. Everyone’s positions on the religion and medicine were consistent with past characterizations. The House/Wilson friendship got most of the play, and this week it was Wilson who was the most unethical, which was a first.
A couple of last thoughts. First, after near misses in the last two episodes, I got this one correct. If you look back at my predictions from the earlier in the season, herpes encephalitis in on there. Second, I hope everyone recognized Boyd’s father was played by William Katt, better known as the Greatest American Hero.
The mystery gets a B, because the hearing God and a brain tumor were pretty much gimmes. The solution earns a B+. This gives an overall medical score of a strong B. For a second week in a row, the non-medical content was the best part of the episode and earns an A.
Still want more great medical reading? This week’s Grand Rounds — the best medical blogging of the past week — are being held over at the Health Business Blog. As usual, there’s an incredible amount of fascinating reading.
- I will be hosting Grand Rounds next Tuesday, so e-mail any submission to me by Monday, 8PM Central time.
April 26th, 2006 at 3:39 am
How is consciousness affected in complex partial seizures?
In UK medical shows dilute urine always leads to a story about taking recreational drugs and a medical for a job
April 26th, 2006 at 6:47 am
You’ll all be thrilled to know I did absolutely NO research at all about the medicine for this episode, so have only a couple of things to say. First, I enjoyed this episode a great deal, mostly because of the above-mentioned interactions between House and Wilson, which are written very much like Tracy-Hepburn excchanges: witty, acerbic, fast, funny. It was the thing that made me decide to watch the whole show, when last week I’d been feeling ready to give it a break. I was rather startled to hear the cancer patient use the term “trailer” when civilians (meaning non-filmmakers) don’t generally even know that word, but say “preview” instead. And re the rash on his butt, I have a friend who has had rashes from his Herpes virus traditionally show up on his left thigh. He’s had it for many years so perhaps that is why, but because of that I didn’t disbelieve the tush-rash. And why, Dear Dr. Scott, would thinking that House was having sex with Wilson mean our heads were in the gutters? They’re practically married anyway, and they’d probably get along nicely.
To add to the William Katt trivia, though, I think it’s funny that his resume also contains the following: (M=movie, T=appearance on TV) “House” (M); House IV (M); a series (T) called “Our House”; was on “7th Heaven” (T) in which one of his episodes included the word “Faith,” was in an episode of “Dead Man’s Gun” called “The Healer” (T); in a Perry Mason ep (T) called “Nun”; has played a Priest in 2 roles (M) “Beautiful Loser” and “U’bejani”; and in an ep of “GAH” called “Heaven is in your Genes” marrying science to medicine (?), and if all that isn’t enough, was in a movie about “Mother Theresa”! He was also in a movie called “Devil’s Food,” but I’m not sure that equals balance.
As a Native American woman (Awi is part of my tribal name), I’ve worked with and seen some remarkable healing work done in traditional ways by my people, including one case which I was on with a friend who had been exposed to HPV, had increasing squamous cells on her cervix, was about to have a cone biopsy as cancer was seriously suspected. The work by a Medicine Woman done before the biopsy included entering her body, removing the walking, laughing “I own this cervix” virus, burning it in the flames of the Earth’s core, and healing the cervix. My friend waited a month, then went for another Pap. It showed fewer squamous cells. Each one showed fewer and fewer until they were gone, she showed no signs of HPV, and 8 yrs. later is completely fine. I was there, and while I’d seen other work produce recovery, this one was documented by Western Medical tests. Just one note: it wasn’t “faith-based” healing, but ancient Shamanic work which is energetic, and requires no “belief” of any kind in any thing. She came for many sessions to deal with other problems, all of which also cleared up. She came as a skeptic, to the bone, but trusted me who trusted the Medicine Woman. Do most people consider this unbelievable? Do people feel the urge to pass it off as ’she was getting better anyway but didn’t know it?’ or is there acceptance of the notion that other forms of Medicine are as legitimate as what we use in the mainstream of the West? Comments, please…if you care to make any.
April 26th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Given the theme of the episode, the unlikely-but-possible cancer-shrinking virus solution made all kinds of sense, though. Scientific in solution, “miraculous” in its improbability.
Ohh, and the whiteboard was a nice running gag.
April 26th, 2006 at 7:04 am
Official Comment
The virus-as-cause-of-remission is no more unlikely than many other solutions on the show, so I accept it — though it was quite a jump in logic.
The whiteboard was nice, particularly when you realize it was done by CHase, the ex-Seminarian.
April 26th, 2006 at 7:27 am
Good review Scott. I’m just curious: how did the medicine earn a B? I myself didn’t see anything particularly wrong in this episode. The rash in that area didn’t look much like herpes (although I’ve seen some vaguely similar herpes rashes in the past), and you’re forgetting the possibility that the sex took place in the vicinity of the rash — ok, unlikely for a faith healer to be on the receiving end of anal sex, but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility. I realize the sore wouldn’t quite be in that exact spot, but it’s television, so they’re not going to be able to show you anyplace closer. It wouldn’t be half as dramatic for the audience to not see the rash.
As far as the household radiation thing, the team admitted it made no sense, but they thought maybe they’d check it out as a shot-in-the-dark Hail-Mary kind of thing. It didn’t seem like a medical error to me, since they freely admitted it was nonsense. They were just out of logical ideas.
The virus/tumor thing is quite unlikely I agree, but let’s face it — it really fit. It reinforces the whole quasi-religious debate this episode had going on, and I liked it as a plot twist. It made the show much more enjoyable and wasn’t medically absurd so I give it the thumbs up.
April 26th, 2006 at 8:13 am
So … a couple of questions from someone without a medical degree:
1) The supposed tumor shrinking … will the tumor grow back and get larger? If the virus is in her system wouldn’t it continue to shrink the tumor?
2) Wouldn’t the tuberous sclerosis have been present elsewhere besides the brain?
3) “If you even think about doing an LP, it means you need to do one.” Why is that?
Thanks!
April 26th, 2006 at 8:48 am
1) The untreated mortality for Herpes Encephalitis is more than 70% IIRC. They’ll have to treat her and then, yes, the tumor will grow back (since the virus is then gone). Also most viruses that I’ve seen claimed to fight cancer only have a very weak ability to shrink cancer cells. Keep in mind this isn’t exactly a scientifically ultra-stable area right now.
2) Yes, but since the tumors are benign and aren’t causing symptoms, it’s best to leave them alone than force unnecessary surgery (they’ll just pop up again anyway).
3) I shouldn’t speak for Scott on this one, but my guess is what he means is that most of what you can find out using an LP is dangerous and should be diagnosed quickly. Putting off doing an LP until it’s too late could be a deadly mistake.
April 26th, 2006 at 8:48 am
Is shingles transmissible by touch, even from a recent lesion-scratching hand? And if Grace did get infected from Boyd, wouldn’t she get chicken pox, not shingles?
I’ve had shingles and in my limited experience .. .you kind of notice.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Official Comment
DrGreg,
The possibility of other types of intercourse had occurred to me, but I still would have expected the rash to be more central and intimate, though the censors and not the writers are ultimately to blame. I think they could have worked in shingles just as easily, and then you don’t have to explain the location.
My grades are entirely subjective. The B means it is better than average, but there were enough little mistakes to be knocked down from an A.
Patrick,
1. No one really knows — it’s all a theoretical possibility that a virus would even affect a cancer. The show implies that it is only a temporary remission and within a month or two the tumor will start growing again.
2. As a disease, tuberous sclerosis has variable expression. Different people will show the disease in entirely different ways, so it is certainly possible that the brain tumor may be Boyd’s only sign of the disease. Many people have tuberous sclerosis and never even know it. (Now, most of the cases I’ve seen have been very bad with seizures and mental retardation, but then only the worst cases get admitted to the hospital, so there’s definite selection bias).
3. By the time you realize you should have done a spinal tap, it can be too late (such as bacterial meningitis, or a leaking aneurysm
April 26th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Official Comment
Karen,
Shingles (also known as zoster) is transmissable by touch. If transmitted, it generally shows up as a chicken pox infection if the person is susceptible. Most adults have been exposed to chicken pox, so wouldn’t show any signs of a re-exposure. People who haven’t had chicken pox can get it from close contact with people with shingles. Rarely, people will get shingles after close contact with someone with shingles. Probably from transmission of the virus or re-activation of the chicken pox, but it’s not entirely clear.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Scott - Thanks for clarifying the grading scheme. I understand it now, I was under the impression you were using an objective grading criteria. The B makes perfect sense now.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Official Comment
DrGreg,
I should probably make one. Hmmm. Maybe next week…
April 26th, 2006 at 10:13 am
“ok, unlikely for a faith healer to be on the receiving end of anal sex, but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility.”
Doesn’t seem that unlikely.
Also re butt rash location, semen it gets everywhere. Or toilet seats, … yeah that’s the ticket. [Thank you, Rob Schneider.]
April 26th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I thought it was bogus that the teen was assumed to have had sex, but Grace contracted herpes simply by being touched. Boyd touches people all the time; if Grace can contract via non-sexual touch, why not Boyd?
Again, I am not a medical professional, but I do know a bit about herpes. It can and does show up in unusual and unexpected places. I knew a guy who would get sores all over his chest, and couldn’t hug his girlfriend (shirtless, anyway) during an outbreak. I thought it was more unusual that it was off to the side than that it was in a non-sexual spot; you’d expect it to be located somewhere in line with the spine.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:38 am
This is a totally random, totally trivial thought, but it is medical. Sort of.: Did Dr. House pop any pain meds this episode? If not, is that a first? (The crushed pills in the sandwich thing was last week, right?)
April 26th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
What I find interesting about this episode is that there was no underlying illness that caused everything. Usually, everything from the initial symptoms to the violent reactions from the wrong treatments are caused by the same disease, but not this one. The reason the kid was brought to House was because of the muscle cramping that happened in the beginning. That was because he was drinking too much water and his sodium levels were completely screwed up. And then House kept him admitted so he could “solve” the case of the kid’s claim to hear God, and they discovered the tumors, which caused the seizure and (according to House and the ducklings) the hearing voices. But then he got the fever (that could kill him, right?), because his herpes chose that time to, erm, surface physically. A chain of events, none of them really related, but observed one after another by House and the ducklings because House kept the guy in the hospital for no reason other than his own skepticism in the existence of God. Very different formula from the usual.
I also liked how they made the episode not really about the religion. Although House proposed that everyone the kid healed only felt better because of a temporary endorphin high, none of that was ever proved true. For all we know, Boyd was telling the truth and everyone he healed remained better. The show never answered that question. They also left it open as to whether or not the kid really heard God; yes, House speculated that the tumors were causing everything, but, again, they never proved it. They could have, by removing the tumors and showing whether or not that made a difference, but the writers chose not to do that. The show didn’t really take sides with the religion debate; like in “Damned if You Do,” each of the characters had their own views on religion, and were not used as instruments of the writers to beat their POV into the viewers. IMO, I think they handled it, once again, amazingly well.
They also gave House some great lines: “You talk to God, you’re religious. God talks to you, you’re psychotic.” and “It’s hard to keep sniping rationally when you throw a bomb like that in there.”
April 26th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
OK thanks for the explanation! (I now realize I did my co-workers a great disservice, aside from being loopy on Lortab.)
As always, love the comments.
April 26th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
From TV Week April 26, 2006
‘House’ Hits Series High in Adults 18 to 49
By Christopher Lisotta
Fox’s medical drama “House” had its best night ever in the adults 18 to 49 demographic Tuesday, hitting a series high in the advertiser-friendly demo.
At 9 p.m. (ET) “House” scored a 9.9 preliminary national rating in adults 18 to 49, a number that includes live-plus-same-day viewing, according to Nielsen Media Research.
“House” held 88 percent of its lead-in, “American Idol” (11.2), the highest-rated show of the night. Fox won Tuesday among the broadcast networks in adults 18 to 49 with a 10.5 rating.
CBS was a distant second for the night among the networks, scoring a 3.4 in the demo, with its 9 p.m. military action hour, “The Unit,” scoring a 3.9.
April 26th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Canton, I believe you’re right. No pills.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
umm… house did pop some pills… i can’t remember where but just once this episode.
i liked chase’s role this episode. it seems like the writers like to put all religious aspects to chase.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
WILLIAM KATT! Man, do I feel stupid now. I *knew* he looked familiar….
Yes, House did pop pills, but I don’t remember exactly where either.
As far as the herpes goes, I think most people hear “herpes” and think “sex” but House mentioned the possibility of a cold sore being the culprit. Of course, the kid’s reaction to being questioned about it makes it more likely to be sex, but he never actually confessed to having sex IIRC.
April 27th, 2006 at 1:37 am
Just because the kid was reluctant to prove the herpes thing doesn’t mean he had sex, just that he applies the same standard: Hears “herpes” and thinks “sex,” therefore feels he will take a hit (Popularity wise) regardless of how he got it.
April 27th, 2006 at 6:51 am
Even if he hadn’t taken any Vicodin this episode, it wouldn’t have been the first time. There’s a couple other episodes earlier this season where he didn’t, though at 8 in the morning remembering just which ones is beyond me.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Beth W said — As far as the herpes goes, I think most people hear “herpes” and think “sex” but House mentioned the possibility of a cold sore being the culprit. Of course, the kid’s reaction to being questioned about it makes it more likely to be sex, but he never actually confessed to having sex IIRC –
Also could just be shy about saying, ‘I’ve got this rash on my butt.’ regardless of it’s nature or possible origin.
April 27th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Reader mail: Can viruses cause tumor shrinkage?…
I just have time for a short take today. (If you need more, fortunately, Bora has posted the 33rd Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle for your edification. Yes, my preamble was just an excuse to plug the Skeptics’ Circle one……
April 27th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
The first thing I thought of when they described the boy hearing from God and having visions, was temporal lobe epilepsy. I thought the special effects of what the boy was experiencing during his seizure was very interesting.
I love the show and watch it as often as I can. Even though I’m ignorant of how accurate it is, it is always a very enjoyable mystery with lots of subplots.
April 27th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
As to the positioning of the rash, I think that was very deliberate. In the first conversation about the patient, there are a couple of comments about him being gay, at least ot one of the doctors, probably Our Man Greg says something about him ‘coming out of the closet.’ He is certainly played as being gay, and shown as — to these elderly bisexual eyes — one of the more beautiful (not necessarily attractive, but beautiful) males I’ve seen recently on tv.
As for the episode itself, I liked it but wouldn’t list it as one of the stronger ones. First time I discovered this site — thanx, Orac — and will have to spend some time reading the other reviews. For me, the show works on Laurie’s performance, whether the medicine works or not, that and the interplays between him and Wilson and him and Cuddy. Next week’s show sounds like a real blockbuster, or at least they’re trying to do one. A two-nighter that will challenge LOST in its time slot. (And fortunately for me, since I am also a fanatic baseball fan, this will be the first week that downloads of LOST will be available for free the next day, so I can tape the HOUSE and watch the LOST on the computer.
April 27th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
House pops pills when Wilson storms in, angry that Boyd has given his patient false hope. Sorry guys, there’s pill popping in this one too :o)
April 27th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Scott, just a head’s up. On the page where all the episodes are listed, you have this one down as Episode 18.
April 27th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Official Comment
Thanks, Jen. I fixed it.
April 27th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
F-
Anyone not doing a complete H&P to include skin exam on admission is flunked from my rotation and better never darken my floors again.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
epador — if you were paying attention you’d realize they did a skin exam on admission. Herpes infections hide and come back regularly. He didn’t have one when he was admitted. It popped up while he was at the hospital.
Sorry, that pedestal was just SO easy to knock over.
April 27th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
1) Shingles is also called Herpes Zoster, a form of Herpes
2) Herpes can be found all over the body - type I or II. It is commonly called genital Herpes, but HSV2 doesn’t have to be genital.
3) Herpes is transmitted by skin to skin contact, and does not have to be due to sexual intercourse.
4) Don’t know about the whole tumor thing. I mean, I have Herpes, not Cancer.
Just a polite dissent from the friendly Herpes community. :-)
April 28th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
“House’s team explores the patient’s history (and apartment) at length to discover if there is any other possible reason for her remission and discover nothing”
You skipped over the MOST egregious medical error on the show, EVER. The writers neededs a pretext to get someone into the girls house (to spot the man’s clothes and out Wilson) so they had House suspect something in her home gave her chemotherapy (!). The guy scanning her house checks the microwave for leaking radiation, and complains that the wiring gives off radtion too. But all that radiation is non-ionic! It CAN’T cause or kill cancer. This was unforgivable. The scene of him checking her microwave almost made me hurl.
April 29th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Ex-House fan: Your post contains more errors than this episode of House did.
First, by “non-ionic” radiation I assume you mean “non-ionizing.” Even so, you’re still wrong. EM radiation at a sufficient frequency IS ionizing and WILL damage DNA. Besides, you shouldn’t be so quick to say “never,” especially in medicine. Why are there warnings on microwaves for pregnant women to stay away from them? Because we just aren’t positive what radiation can and can’t do. Period.
Yes, when Chase scanned the devices they should have been “on” to get a reasonable readout. That was a mistake.
House didn’t recommend checking out Grace’s home, Foreman did. And they all admitted it was a ridiculous longshot but they were desperate. No one claimed to have a sound medical reason for doing the test, it was a hunch. Obviously it didn’t work out, but it was still just a hunch.
Oh, crap, the sign says “DON’T” feed the trolls. My bad.
April 29th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Reviewing “House vs God” episode outline, a friend has pointed out the following…
“House mentions herpes virii are most prone to attack cancer cells. Wilson realizes that herpes encephalitis would fit all of the symptoms. House walks into Boyd’s room and orders him to strip. House is looking for the sores that are symptomatic of herpes encephalitis, mentioning to Walter that Boyd contracted it through sex. ” …..
Are they saying that genital herpes sores are symptomatic (a symptom of the disease) of encephalitis? That’s like saying that with high thyroid… You must have encephalitis! (Hashimoto’s) Receiving mosquito bites….you must have encephalitis! (West Nile). Diagnosed with measles, mumps, rubella, or chickenpox… you must have encephalitis!
None of these statements are inaccurate, of course, but I think the author of this episode is really pushing the facts on this one, and also:
a) frightening folks with genital herpes sores, that encephalitis is pending…. and also….
b) telling folks with HSE that they must have had genital herpes.
“A few days later, Boyd knocks on House’s door.”
They’re telling us that days shortly following fever, delerious, and being diagnosed with HSE, this survivor is out for a walk? Now I can tell you from personal experience that a survivor of HSE spends months recovering… and does NOT go for a walk a few days later.
Wendy Station, President
Encephalitis Global, Inc.
http://www.encephalitisglobal.com
May 2nd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
IF the nursing staff had been doing their job, THEY would have caught the recurrence of the herpes
lesions in their daily skin assessments. I am losing interest in House…the show is too predictable…and I tire of the acceptance of House’s inappropriate behaviors.
May 4th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Yikes, even this site has its trolls. I wonder if “Ex-House Fan” is the “tibor75″ that’s been terrorizing the House message boards on IMDb.com, pretending to be a physician.
Scott, thanks again for the great reviews. As predictable as the show is, it’s still better than most other stuff on TV these days.
May 28th, 2006 at 4:09 am
I’m a little skeptical about a Geiger counter being able to pick up anything coming from a household appliance. I’m under the impression that a Geiger counter only makes noise when ionizing radiation passes through it. The energy in electromagnetic radiation is equal to h*f where h is Plank’s constant and f is the frequency. Wikipedia says that electromagnetic radiation is ionizing with frequency only above 10^(15) Hz (that’s 10 to the 15th power cycles per second), this corresponds to ultraviolet light. A microwave oven works at 2.45 *10^9 Hz, one million times weaker than UV light!!! Note that a microwave oven works by sending out many many photons, causing water to oscillate about it’s dipole and thus heat up. So while there is some controversy (in the hippy literature) as to whether a microwave oven can actually cause ionization, I doubt a Geiger counter could pick up this radiation (or else the controversy would be over right?). Now common house hold voltage oscillates at 60Hz, that means emitted photons would have less than one-million times one-million times 100th the energy that ionizing radiation has. It is true that incoming TV signals and other such things are at higher frequency, but the incoming signal is typically very small. Basically I think this segment of the show was horseshit. I bet one of you Doctor folk has access to a Geiger counter. Why don’t you try this out yourself?
June 2nd, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Math Guy’s right about the ionizing radiation point - leaving aside the question of health effects from non-ionizing radiation, which is another poorly supported area, a Geiger counter will not pick up microwaves or even the highest-frequency EM generated by any electrical devices in the home. This is backed up by theory, and I have tried it for good measure. :)
There could be some sources of ionizing radiation in the home - perhaps she sleeps with six old smoke detectors under her pillow, and has a serious radon problem. The show already acknowledged the ridiculousness of expecting overall radiation exposure to account for the tumour shrinkage, fortunately. Since we’re looking at zebras anyway though, I suppose internalization of an emitter would be slightly less crazy, depending on the tumour’s location (I don’t recall that). Not so much crazier than a viral infection from a brief contact just happening to cause a (very rapid) shrinkage.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:55 am
The only lesions my ex got when she got herpes was on her butt, so that makes perfect sense.
January 8th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Hey, Scott. Found your site recently, and enjoyably wasted a lot of time getting caught up to the episodes I’ve seen. Now, when I watch episodes, I think “I wonder what Scott’s going to say about this one?” and em examining the shows much more critically. It hasn’t dampened my enjoyment much… just made me a little more aware. Thanks for the great reviews… can’t wait to read more as I make my way through the season two DVDs and up to the present episodes!
– BZero, non-medical House, M.D. fan
January 14th, 2007 at 11:37 am
This episode was enjoyable, and House had some good lines (”Isn’t it interesting that religious behavior is so close to being crazy we can’t tell the difference?”), but two things bothered me. One was the final score on the whiteboard. House explained every anomaly (medical and interpersonal - any television psychic worth his own 900 number could have picked up on the body language between Cameron and Foreman) attributed to God, yet it ended in a tie. It just felt as if the writers pulled that final punch so as not to offend anyone.
My other issue is more with television in general. Why is it that when a character is an atheist, we seem to take it as axiomatic that he (or she) is also miserable? There seems to be an unspoken rule that atheism is synonymous with nihilism; you believe in God, or you believe in nothing. There’s a *lot* of ground to cover in between. The widespread belief that the world can’t be beautiful, complex and interesting unless there’s a higher power behind it is baffling, to say the least.
(If the dates of these posts seem a bit late, I’ve only recently been watching the first two seasons of House, and I usually come straight to this page after each one to see what others thought of it.)
March 29th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I recently watched this episode for the first time, and enjoyed it. Favorite quote: “And you’re worried about…trademark infringement?” Onto the iPod it goes.
Max: Gary Larson once said he felt that he had to be pretty careful when depicting God in his panels. He had one in which God was trouncing an ordinary mortal in a Jeopardy-like trivia game show, and he said that if the mortal had scored even 10 points, he would have gotten plenty of mail complaining about how God had been beaten to the buzzer. So the fact that House was allowed to score to a tie (and remember, tie goes to the mortal) is pretty impressive. Of course, the whole scoring is entirely baseless; it’s just about how people perceive the role of science vs religion. It says more about Chase than it does about what happened in the episode.
As far as atheism goes, it violates a default assumption, and therefore demands explanation. Cuddy is a successful female doctor, so of course Vogler has an explanation for that. He wouldn’t have needed one (or even considered a need for one) if she were a man. Likewise, when confronted with an atheist, the prevailing reaction seems to be, “Why are you an atheist?” That question doesn’t come up in connection with a “normally” religious person. It’s not consistent, but it is human nature.
Incidentally, I’m also curious why House was able to conclude that the boy caught the herpes sexually, before he revealed the rash, when the woman clearly caught it from the boy non-sexually.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:23 am
I think House was just making another generalization, and I quote:
” The chance of a 15-year-old having sex: roughly 120%”.
April 25th, 2007 at 10:47 am
The ‘mystery’ score of this episode might have been low, but remember, it’s only if this kid came into a real hospital hearing the voice of God that this would be a likely outcome. This being a fictional TV series, particularly on a US network, there’s always the significant chance that the outcome could have been left miraculous. Faith healers seem to be genuine miracle workers about 50% of the time in fiction, as opposed to 0% in reality. I was really hoping they weren’t going to go with an unrealistic explanation on this one, and I was glad when they didn’t.
I’d also second Max’s comment earlier about the frequency of atheist characters being miserable, but I think that’s more about House being a tortured genius in the Sherlock Holmes style than anyone deciding to make him an atheist, and then therefore miserable.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:21 am
I hate to be harsh, Awi, but if traditional techniques worked, would you still have lupus? Would we have even bothered with inventing modern medicine if we had magic?
Also, I remember you previously saying that it was unlikely that they’d always assume it was lupus so early in the process. I think you’d feel vindicated when we found out that House was using his lupus book to hide his “secret-secret” vicoden stash.
DrGreg: Maybe the ongoing priest scandal makes me biased, but I can’t help noticing a correlation between being really religious and being really gay. Not the good kind of gay either. Not that kind that’s fun to take out just to listen to their catty comments about shoes. No, I’m talking the “Deliverance” kind of gay. The bad kind, the Ted Haggart-kind.
Jen: Is it possible that everyone Boyd touched was infected like the cancer patient?
Atheism: The ability to look beyond what one is told, to examine and deduce for one’s self what the truth of the universe might be goes hand in hand with a high enough intelligence to understand what you are studying. Intelligence means understanding and empathy. You know what words mean, so you know what’s happening. At least as much as any single mortal, burdened as we are with limited cognition, could ever possibly understand.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Well, this is really late to be commenting, but they explained why he caught the herpes sexually, even though it can be caught non-sexually. House figured it out because the boy had such a strong need to “purify himself”. He was drinking so much water, because he felt guilty about having sex and having caught herpes, and was trying to purify his system, which is what brought him into the hospital in the first place. If he’d simply gotten a rash, would he even have known it was herpes or suspected a sexual connection? He was fine with going to a doctor when he didn’t feel well, if he hadn’t gotten the rash from “doing something wrong” then he’d have gone to a doctor about it. So, that part actually made sense. It also provided the motive to hide that information.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Here’s something i missed in the show, review and probably skipped over in the comments;
If the kid had herpes (wich i believe to be a STD), and the woman had it too, shouldn’t Wilson be checked out too, since he had sex with her??
It would’ve added a nice extra kick to Wilsons misstep, since the writers could’ve made it into a divine retribution or something like that…
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