Results for: Reiki

Mayo Clinic Promotes Reiki

The Mayo Clinic is a prestigious medical institution with a deserved international reputation. It also promotes rank pseudoscience. It does this, apparently, for all the reasons we have explored here at SBM over the years. I have seen first hand how one or a few true believers can promote so-called alternative medicine at their institutions, meeting little resistance from colleagues and administrators...

/ February 14, 2024
Reiki

No, editors of The Atlantic, reiki does not work

Over the weekend, The Atlantic published an article by Jordan Kisner touting the benefits of reiki and arguing that you shouldn't listen to all those nasty skeptics calling it woo-woo. Unsurprisingly, the article is a credulous mess citing only token skepticism and relying on weak evidence. The Atlantic's embrace of quackery continues.

/ March 9, 2020

Reiki: Fraudulent Misrepresentation – Revisited

Factual misrepresentations about manipulating "energy" in a patient's body and its positive effects on health are integral to reiki. They can also be the basis of an action for fraudulent misrepresentation.

/ September 28, 2017

Reiki and Therapeutic Touch. Compare and Contrast.

What? I’m not on vacation? I have to write a post? Crap. Remember those college essays? Compare and Contrast two topics and fill a Blue Book with your wisdom. Well, let's compare and contrast reiki and therapeutic touch, henceforth known as RATT.

/ December 9, 2016

Astrology, Alchemy, ESP and Reiki. One Of These Is Not Like The Other

I knew that Jann was thinking of writing about reiki and fraud, but did not know the details of her most excellent discussion from yesterday until I had finished my penultimate draft for today. Think of them as a match set, two perspectives on the same elephant. Fraud: a person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being...

/ June 13, 2014

Reiki: Fraudulent Misrepresentation

The Center for Integrative Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic sells reiki treatments (also here) to patients with cancer, fertility issues, Parkinson’s Disease and digestive problems, as well as other diseases and conditions. The Center’s website ad describes reiki as a form of hands-on, natural healing that uses universal life force energy . . . [a] vital life force energy that flows through...

/ June 12, 2014

Reiki

Reiki (pronounced raykey) is a form of “energy healing,” essentially the Asian version of faith healing or laying on of hands. Practitioners believe they are transferring life energy to the patient, increasing their well-being. The practice is popular among nurses, and in fact is practiced by nurses at my own institution (Yale). From reiki.org, we get this description: Reiki is a Japanese...

/ October 19, 2011

Best Hospital Eye Roll

Science: Figuring things out is better than making things up. A tee shirt I recently saw. Except… In a recent post Mayo Clinic Promotes Reiki, Steve seemed surprised that the Mayo was offering Reiki. I don’t know. Maybe he was channeling Louie. I know the Mayo is a top hospital, but I trained in Minneapolis at Hennepin County and we would have...

/ March 19, 2024
Shedding is not a thing for SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines.

Why antivax arguments for COVID-19 vaccine “shedding” remind me of homeopathy

An antivaxxer by the 'nym "A Midwestern Doctor" makes an argument that COVID-19 vaccine "shedding" is not impossible despite the basic science that concludes it is. Sound familiar?

/ January 15, 2024

From the Vault: Infant Teething Myths and Misconceptions

Enjoy this classic post from the vault as we close out 2023. A few myths and misconceptions about infant teething.

/ December 22, 2023