Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin versus COVID-19: Grift, conspiracy theories, and another bad study by Didier Raoult
On Friday, Prof. Didier Raoult posted another study of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine used against COVID-19. It is a single arm observational study of patients with mostly mild (or even asymptomatic) disease that is painfully uninformative with respect to the question of this treatment's effectiveness. That didn't stop America's Quack Dr. Oz and other grifters from touting Raoult's study, as well as a...
Are hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin an effective treatment for COVID-19?
Saturday morning, President Trump Tweeted a claim that the combination of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine "have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine" and hoped that they be "put in use IMMEDIATELY" to treat COVID-19. His claims were based on a single clinical trial out of France. Unfortunately, although it is not implausible that...
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.
“Personalized” dietary recommendations based on DNA testing: Modern astrology
GenoPalate is a company that claims to give "personalized" dietary recommendations based on DNA testing. Unfortunately, what is provided by such companies is more akin to astrology than science.
Genetics and evolution in cancer
Several new studies were published earlier this month describing the sequencing of over 2,600 cancer genomes. What the results show include what sorts of mutations drive cancer development and how evolution makes cancers so difficult to treat.
No, James Lyons-Weiler did not “break the coronavirus code”
Last week, a new conspiracy theory about the coronavirus outbreak by James Lyons-Weiler went viral (if you'll excuse the term) after antivax conspiracy theorist Del Bigtree interviewed him. Lyons-Weiler strongly implies that the strain of coronavirus behind the outbreak (2019-nCoV) has a SARS-like sequence that came from a laboratory working on a SARS vaccine. Fortunately, Dr. Gorski has the mad molecular biology...
Are medical errors really the third most common cause of death in the U.S.? (2020 edition)
The claim that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the US has always rested on very shaky evidence; yet it has become common wisdom that is cited as though everyone accepts it. But if estimates of 250,000 to 400,000 deaths due to medical error are way too high, what is the real number? A recently published study suggests...
How can we counter misinformation from “chemo truthers”?
Denial of the benefits of chemotherapy is very prevalent in "natural health" movements. This denial is based on fear mongering, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories and thus shares many similarities with the antivaccine movement. How can the misinformation spread by "chemo truthers" be countered on social media?