Month: June 2014

Did Facebook and PNAS violate human research protections in an unethical experiment?

Ed. Note: NOTE ADDENDUM I daresay that I’m like a lot of you in that I spend a fair bit of time on Facebook. This blog has a Facebook page (which, by the way, you should head on over and Like immediately). I have a Facebook page, several of our bloggers, such as Harriet Hall, Steve Novella, Mark Crislip, Scott Gavura, Paul...

/ June 30, 2014

One Million Page Views

For the first time, ScienceBasedMedicine.org has reached a million page views in a month, thanks to a surge in social media buzz. We’ve come close before, but finally pushed comfortably past that major milestone earlier this week. As of today, SBM served 1,051,943 pages to 649,315 visitors in the last thirty days. These are mainstream-scale numbers: SBM is now competing effectively with...

/ June 28, 2014

TCM Hodgepodge

I suspect there is more published about traditional Chinese medicine than any other SCAM. Here are some of the recent curiosities of TCM. Burning genitals The little girls laughed about the germs, because they didn’t believe in them; but they believed about the disease, because they’d seen that happen. Spirits caused it, everyone knew that. Spirits and bad luck. Jack had not...

/ June 27, 2014

NY federal court hands triple loss to anti-vaccination ideology

The state of New York allows religious and medical (but not philosophical) exemptions from school vaccination mandates. New York City has a policy of excluding unvaccinated schoolchildren from classes when there is an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease reported in a particular school. Two sets of parents whose children had religious exemptions sued New York City and the state in federal court when...

/ June 26, 2014

Food Fears

A new Cornell University study examines the origins of food fears, and possible remedies. It’s a survey of 1,008 mothers asking about foods they avoid and why. Food fears are a common topic on SBM, likely for several reasons. Humans have an inherent emotion of disgust, which is likely an adaptation to help avoid contaminated or spoiled food. In our modern society...

/ June 25, 2014

Acupuncture for Macular Degeneration: Why I Reject the Evidence

This post is dedicated to two people who are frequent commenters on SBM, Stephen S. Rodrigues and Peter Moran. Rodrigues is an MD/acupuncturist who tries to persuade us that acupuncture is effective. Moran is a retired surgeon who objects to insulting language and thinks more can be accomplished by trying to better understand why people turn to CAM and by explaining the...

/ June 24, 2014

John Oliver skewers Dr. Oz for his hawking of diet supplements

As regular readers of this blog know, Dr. Mehmet Oz had a very, very bad day last week, in which he received a major tongue lashing from Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) for the scientifically unsupported and irresponsible hyperbole he dishes out day after day on his syndicated daytime television show. Personally, I was tempted to pile on myself, but had to content...

/ June 23, 2014

Ketogenic diet does not “beat chemo for almost all cancers”

One of the difficult things about science-based medicine is determining what is and isn’t quackery. While it is quite obvious that modalities such as homeopathy, acupuncture, reflexology, craniosacral therapy, Hulda Clark’s “zapper,” the Gerson therapy and Gonzalez protocol for cancer, and reiki (not to mention every other “energy healing” therapy) are the rankest quackery, there are lots of treatments that are harder...

/ June 23, 2014

Is There a Role for the Art of Medicine in Science-Based Practice?

The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. The practice of medicine is an art, based on science. -Sir William Osler, AEQUANIMITAS The truth is that many of us have some kind of “extraordinary gift.” For a few of us, that gift...

/ June 20, 2014

Dr. Oz and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Dr. Mehmet Oz is one of the most well-known, and possibly the most influential medical doctor in America. The Dr. Oz Show is broadcast in 118 countries and reaches over 3 million viewers in the USA alone. When Oz profiles a product or supplement on his show, sales explode – it’s called “The Dr. Oz Effect”. Regrettably, Oz routinely and consistently gives...

/ June 19, 2014