Month: November 2012

The result of the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT): As underwhelming as expected

Chelation therapy. It’s one of the most common quackeries out there, used by a wide variety of practitioners for a wide variety of ailments blamed on “heavy metal toxicity.” Chelation therapy, which involves using chemicals that can bind to the metal ions and allow them to be excreted by the kidneys, is actually standard therapy for certain types of acute heavy metal...

/ November 5, 2012

The Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy: Equivocal as Predicted

The ill-advised, NIH-sponsored Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) is finally over. 839 human subjects were randomized to receive Na2EDTA infusions; 869 were randomized to receive placebo infusions. The results were announced at this weekend’s American Heart Association meeting in Los Angeles. In summary, the TACT authors report a slight advantage for chelation over placebo in the “primary composite endpoint,” a combination...

/ November 4, 2012

The Light Fantastical. Ultra Violet Blood Irradiation.

What would you do if your swimming pool was dirty?  Clean it of course.  But how?  Would you take out a few pails of water, treat the water in the buckets, then toss the water back into the pool and declare the pool clean?  And if it were the bathroom that needed cleaning, would you clean it by treating a few bucket...

/ November 2, 2012

CAM and Creationism: Separated at Birth?

Over the past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend CSICon in Nashville, Tennessee. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (“CSI”) combats all sorts of pseudoscience, including creationism/creation science/intelligent design and alternative/complementary/integrative medicine. Our own Team SBM was ably represented by Harriet Hall, David Gorski and Kimball Atwood, whose presentation highlighted the credulous acceptance of CAM in some medical schools, and by Steve...

/ November 1, 2012