Category: Science and Medicine

Belly Button Healing: Science plus Magic for Only $99?

If you wanted to design and market an ineffective treatment with the best chance of successfully fooling consumers, it would have to include a certain set of key components in order to maximize profit. A connection to nature is extremely important, the more emotional the better. Although trickier to pull off, your product would need to call upon ancient wisdom while also...

/ September 9, 2016

Oxygen water? You can’t breathe through your stomach

My exercise of choice is running. Despite the heat I’ve been having a great summer, training for the Chicago marathon. I’ve followed the training schedule fanatically since June. But it all came crashing down in one run last week when I moved from the ranks of “marathoner in training” to “injured runner”. With the sudden onset of very sharp, radiating back pain,...

/ September 8, 2016

An Unexpected Miscellany of Medical Malarkey

  I had originally intended a focused discussion of a single topic, but life circumstances have conspired to prevent me from doing so.  In the place of my intended post, please enjoy the following collection of hastily assembled pseudomedical odds and ends brought to my attention over the past few weeks.

/ August 26, 2016

Do pill organizers help or hurt?

In order for medication to work, getting a prescription filled isn’t enough. You have to actually take the medication. And that’s where you (the patient) come in. Estimates vary based on the population and the medication, but a reasonable assumption is that 50% of people given a prescription don’t take their medication as prescribed. In pharmacy terminology we usually call this medication...

/ August 25, 2016

Patient Groups and Pseudoscience

The biggest challenge we face promoting high standards of science in medicine is not making our case to the community. Our case is rock solid, in my opinion, and backed by evidence and logic. There is no question, for example, that homeopathy is 100% bogus and should not be part of modern medicine. Our challenge is that there are literally billions of...

/ August 24, 2016

Building a Case for CAM

[Editor’s note: Mark Crislip is taking a well deserved vacation from blogging, and James Thomas has kindly agreed to provide another guest post to fill the gaping need left in all of your lives. Enjoy!] According to the Orwellian-named National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, roughly 33% of adults aged 18-44 and about 37% aged 45-64 use some form of CAM....

/ August 19, 2016

Does acetaminophen during pregnancy raise the risk of behaviour problems?

In my career as a pharmacist I’ve answered a lot of questions about medication use in pregnancy. Pharmacists are among the most accessible health professionals, and we’re usually found near a wall of medicines and supplements.  Many don’t trust Dr. Google, and for good reason: There are conflicting answers online. When it comes to medication use in pregnancy and effects on the...

/ August 18, 2016

Dana-Farber Cancer Center’s Integrative Medicine Expansion

In June, an article in the Boston Globe covered yet another incursion of pseudoscience into a major academic medical center, this time at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dana-Farber, located just a couple of miles from the library where I’m writing this post, has provided world-class care for children and adults with cancer since 1947. It’s kind of a big deal. Sidney Farber,...

/ August 12, 2016

In Pursuit of Patient Safety

[Editor’s note: With Dr. Gorski enjoying a vacation to recharge his batteries, we present a second offering from contributor James Thomas. Enjoy!] Advocates of CAM* (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) have long argued that mainstream medicine is a dangerous undertaking using toxic drugs and invasive interventions that often do more harm than good, while the various quackeries huddled under the CAM umbrella are...

/ August 8, 2016

Separating Fact from Fiction in Pediatric Medicine: Facial Nerve Palsy

There are numerous medical conditions that are seemingly designed to allow proponents of “irregular medicine” to proclaim their treatments to be effective. These conditions tend to be chronic and subjective in nature, or to have waxing and waning courses such that a parent or patient might easily be fooled into assigning a causal relationship between a bogus intervention and a clinical improvement....

/ July 29, 2016