Science-Based Medicine

Kimball Atwood is obviously trying to throw mud at Harvard and at homeopathy, but when you throw mud, you get dirty…

(Sigh) So little time, so much misinformation. Hence the Dull-Man Law:

In any discussion involving science or medicine, being Dana Ullman loses you the argument immediately…and gets you laughed out of the room.

This will be the last time that I don’t invoke that law, because it is the perfect opportunity to explain why it is such a useful shortcut. The occasion is the current series about my alma mater, Harvard Medical School (HMS), and its regrettable dalliances with quackery.† The series consists mostly of correspondence that occurred between Dean Daniel Federman and me in 2002. Some of it refers to homeopathy.*

Mr. Ullman, a self-styled expert on homeopathy who lacks any medical training, is a darling of the ‘integrative medicine’ movement, as explained here. He has posted several comments objecting to my assertions in the HMS series. Other commenters have skillfully refuted some of his arguments. Some have been left unchallenged, however, and a naive reader might therefore assume that they are valid. They are not, but explaining why takes time and a modest acquaintance with the topic. Other than to clarify the issues for the uninitiated, then, such time would be wasted. Henceforth, let it not be so: From now on, this post can be cited by anyone wanting to avoid the drudgery of refuting Mr. Ullman’s claims. Continue Reading »

HMS Puts the Messenger in its Crosshairs

When, during the fall and winter of 2001-02 I first approached Dean Daniel Federman of the Harvard Medical School (HMS) with evidence that the HMS “CAM” program was promoting pseudomedicine, I gave him some materials that I thought would be adequate to make the case: ‘CAM’ Director David Eisenberg’s dubious funding sources and his failure to disclose them to the Massachusetts Special Commission; the website of the Caregroup/Harvard Medical School Center for Alternative Medicine Research and Education (CAMRE), which urged anonymous websurfers to “consult your local telephone yellow pages” for ‘naturopathic physicians’ and other quacks; the presence on the ultra-PPO American Association for Health Freedom (AAHF) Advisory Board of attorney Michael H. Cohen, the Harvard CAMRE’s “Director of Legal Programs” (at the time, Dr. Federman agreed with me that the mere existence of such a position was curious, if the CAMRE’s purpose was ”research and education”); that Dr. Eisenberg and Atty Cohen had contributed to a report to the Massachusetts State Legislature recommending a formal state imprimatur for the practice of pseudomedicine; and other embarrassing findings. A bit later, in March 2002, I sent him a draft of the essay that I posted in Parts I and II of this series.

That material proved not to be adequate, for on March 20, 2002, Dr. Federman sent me the following letter:

Dear Kim,

I ready to undertake a formal review of the Harvard Medical School’s Division of Research and Education in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and of its leadership to investigate the charges outlined in your letter of November 4, 2001, subsequent emails, and our meeting of January 22, 2002 in my office. I have read almost all of the voluminous literature you sent me and am writing to ask you to assist our efforts. Specifically, I am asking you to prepare a one to three page summary of the specific portions of the material you sent me that you consider erroneous, duplicitous, misleading, or fraudulent.* I do not feel I should summarize your views. Please be specific and give sources, where you can, in support of your statements.

I am committed to achieving a careful and balanced review of the issues you raise.

Sincerely,

Daniel E. Federman, M.D.

* [These are terms that I had used in my communications with Dr. Federman; the only one from which I backed away, after he reacted with considerable alarm, was "fraudulent."]

That was the first real suggestion that the fix was in. The pertinent literature that I’d sent Dr. Federman did not consist of “my views” or even my words. It consisted of statements copied from CAMRE publications and other public sources. Why did Dr. Federman now seem to be framing the issue as a matter of (my) opinion? Why weren’t the points that I’d already presented and documented (they were specific and I gave sources) sufficient to trigger an independent, formal review? What about the summary that I’d already written in the form of a letter to Harvard Magazine, which Dr. Federman had also read? No matter: I was still confident that he would do the right thing when he saw the totality of the evidence, abundantly and overwhelmingly supporting my contention that the CAMRE and other HMS affiliates were promoting pseudomedicine—dangerously, unethically, and in contrast to their stated purpose.

It was then that I resolved to write the essays that I posted in Parts I, II and III of this series.‡ I also prepared the summary that Dr. Federman had requested, which is reprinted below. In June, 2002, I sent these together with this letter:

Continue Reading »

As you may have noticed, everybody’s “favorite” homeopath, Dana Ullman, has made a return visit to our humble little blog, where he is laying down his usual list of logical fallacies and irrelevencies (such as attacking Oliver Wendell Holmes) in defense of homeopathy. Consequently, now’s as good a time as any to unveil what is perhaps the best ready-for-a-poster criticism of homeopathy I’ve ever seen:

Clicking on the picture will lead you to a blog post where you can download a high resolution version suitable for printing up and either distributing or posting on a bulletin board or wall. I particularly like that it was made by The American Institute for the Destruction of Tooth Fairy Science. Truly, a nod to SBM blogger extraordinaire Harriet Hall!

My only objection to the poster is the use of the word “shit.” Don’t get me wrong here. Yes, it’s accurate. No, I’m not some sort of prude who never uses the word and wilts at the very sight or sound of it. My problem with it is that its inclusion on the image means that I can’t actually print up and post this beautiful (and brief) mockery of homeopathy on my lab door or on the bulletin board in my office. I can’t put something like that up in public at work. It also made me a little leery of posting it here, which led me to check with our fearless leader before doing it. So I started thinking of alternatives that get the message across but without any curse words.

Clearly, a version of the poster suitable for a G (or at least PG) audience is required.

How about something like:

If water has a memory, then homeopathy is full of crap
Homeopathy: Potentizing poo by flushing.

After all, flushing should “succuss” the remedy as well as hitting it against a Bible.

Yes, I do watch Dirty Jobs a lot, with its host, Mike Rowe, who likes to use the word “poo” a lot. Come to think of it, perhaps Mike Rowe should do a segment of Dirty Jobs segment at a manufacturer of homeopathic remedies. Why? Think of the potentized poo!