Category: Health Fraud
The Exciting Conclusion
On the slim chance that you’ve been perched on the edge of your seat wondering how the New Mexico appellate court ruled on chiropractic prescription privileges, whether the Council on Chiropractic Education got approved for another three years as an accrediting agency, if NCCAM ever came clean about spinal manipulation, and the fate of Brandon Babcock, DC, at the hands of the...
Full of Energy
Want to know what a craniosacral treatment is actually like? How about reiki? What about Eden energy medicine – do you even know what that is? Read on, because this past Sunday afternoon I experienced all three. But first, the why and where. The local Healing Arts Alliance of the Big Bend (which is what they call the area of Florida I...
CAM Docket: Functional Endocrinology Update
Sometimes the media gets it right. From time to time, SBM has reported on the disheartening credulity of reporters when they cover so-called “alternative” medicine. Denver’s Channel 7, an ABC affiliate, is a happy exception to the rule. Reporter Theresa Marchetta first broke the story of Brandon and Heather Credeur, chiropractors practicing “Functional Endocrinology.” And for three years Marchetta, with the assistance...
When doctors betray their patients and science-based medicine for money
We spend a lot of time on this blog discussing failures of the medical system. Usually, we such discussions occur in the context of how unscientific practices and even outright quackery have managed to infiltrate what should be science-based medicine (SBM) in the form of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine,” in which the quackery of alternative medicine is...
Six reasons CAM practitioners should not be licensed
States license “complementary and alternative” (CAM) practitioners (chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists/TCM practitioners and homeopaths) via the magic of “legislative alchemy.” Ironically, licensing statutes are enacted based on the states’ constitutional power to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public. Yet these CAM practice acts actually increase public vulnerability to unsafe and ineffective health care practices. It is, in short, a bad...
“Sense and nonsense” about alternative medicine in USA Today
Sometimes, between blogging, a demanding day (and night) job doing surgery and science, and everything else, I embarrass myself. Sure, sometimes I embarrass myself by saying something that, in retrospect, I wish I hadn’t. More often, I embarrass myself by letting things slide that I shouldn’t. For instance, when friends send me a prepublication copy of their books, I should damned well...
CAM Docket: Kardashian Diet Products Klass Action
Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian permit the use of their names and images of their curvaceous bodies to promote “QuickTrim” diet products, a line of dietary supplements making overblown claims typical of the weight loss supplement industry. Their personal testimonies and formidable publicity machine (Kim alone has over 13 million followers on Twitter), “has reportedly generated $45 million in revenue since they...
Enbrel for Stroke and Alzheimer’s
A recent article in the LA times tells of a husband’s quest to find a treatment for his wife’s Alzheimer’s disease. This is a narrative that journalists know and love—the brave patient or loved-one who won’t accept the nihilism of the medical establishment, who finds a maverick doctor willing to buck the system. The article itself at least was not gushing, it...
Dr. Who?
If the “Health Freedom” movement has its way, everyone in the United States will be able to practice medicine. It may be quack medicine but that doesn’t seem to bother them. Short of that, chiropractors, naturopaths and acupuncturists are aiming to reinvent themselves primary care providers and even physicians. As David Gorski pointed out, this will reduce medical doctors to just another iteration...
“Alternative” cancer cures in 1979: How little things have changed
When it comes to quackery, the decades and names change, but the song remains the same, as it has since the era of disco and earlier.