Results for: quackademic

Stem cells

Dubious stem cell trials for autism and the darker side of quackademic medicine

Despite a lack of evidence, Duke University is all-in on stem cells for autism, thanks to a billionaire benefactor and a highly dodgy for-profit Panama stem cell clinic. How did this come to be and what will be the outcome? Whatever the answers to these questions, it is clear that arrangements like the one between Duke University and The Stem Cell Institute...

/ November 2, 2020

Quackademic medicine update: UC Irvine reneges on promise of scientific rigor

In 2017, UC Irvine promised that the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute would be "rigorously evidence-based". A recent review discovers plenty of pseudoscience.

/ February 27, 2020
Homeopathy, naturopathy, and acupuncture at the University of Michigan

Confronting homeopathy, naturopathy, homeopathy, and other quackademic medicine at my alma mater

Several years back, I was forced to confront quackery at my alma mater in the form of an anthroposophic medicine program at the University of Michigan. The situation has deteriorated since then, as now the Department of Family Medicine there is inviting homeopaths to give talks and teaching acupuncture as credulously as any acupuncturist. Will the disease metastasize to other departments in...

/ August 27, 2018
Avalanche

Another pebble in the quackademic integrative avalanche

We've documented the infiltration of quackery into academic medicine through the "integration" of mystical and prescientific treatment modalities into medicine. Here, we look at a pebble in the quackademic avalanche. Is it too late for the pebbles to vote?

/ April 9, 2018
Deepak Chopra

Quackademic medicine and the delusion of being “science-based”

Last week, I was interviewed by the a reporter from the Georgetown student newsletter about its integrative medicine program. It got me to thinking how delusion that one's work is science-based can lead to collaborations with New Age "quantum" mystics like Deepak Chopra.

/ February 12, 2018

Quackademic Medicine at UC Irvine

UC Irvine Medicine School opens a center for integrative medicine, selling out to promote quackery in medicine.

/ September 20, 2017

Bastions of quackademic medicine: Georgetown University

We frequently discuss a disturbing phenomenon known as quackademic medicine. Basically, quackademic medicine is a phenomenon that has taken hold over the last two decades in medical academia in which once ostensibly science-based medical schools and academic medical centers embrace quackery. This embrace was once called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) but among quackademics the preferred term is now “integrative medicine.” Of...

/ July 27, 2015

“Integrative oncology”: The Trojan horse that is quackademic medicine infiltrates ASCO

You might have noticed that I didn’t produce a post last week, something that’s unusual for me, given how prolific I have been in the blogosphere. One reason was personal. The other reason was that last weekend I was attending the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago. I also must confess that, while I was...

/ June 9, 2014
University of Arizona Cancer Center

A tale of quackademic medicine at the University of Arizona Cancer Center

NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers like the University of Arizona should provide rigorously science-based treatment. Unfortunately, magical mystical "treatments" like reiki are offered to UA patients, as I learned from a father of a child treated there.

/ March 17, 2014

Quackademic medicine trickles out to community hospitals

One of the major themes of this blog has been to combat what I, borrowing a term coined (as far as I can tell) by Dr. R. W. Donnell, like to refer to as “quackademic medicine.” Quackademic medicine is a lovely term designed to summarize everything that is wrong with the increasing embrace of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or, as...

/ June 11, 2012