Results for: homeopathy
Less benefit, more risk. Our assumptions about health treatments are probably wrong.
I’m a health professional, but sometimes a patient as well. And like most patients, I generally don’t want health decisions being made without my input. Yes, I want the best medical information, and the advice of medical professionals, but ultimately I want to make my own decisions about my care. That’s the norm in health care today, but relatively new in the...
Cancer Centers and Advertising Practices
You have probably seen the TV commercials or other ads for Cancer Treatment Centers of America. They make it sound like “the place to go” if you have cancer. They claim to be “different,” to combine the best cancer technologies with natural therapies in a humane, patient-centered approach that helps you fight the disease and maintain your quality of life. They offer...
The Wild West: Tales of a Naturopathic Ethical Review Board
In Arizona, a naturopathic institutional review board has been set up to examine the ethics of naturopathic research projects. It's going about as well as naturopathic training and practice.
Integrative medicine, naturopathy, and David Katz’s “more fluid concept of evidence”
Dr. David Katz is undoubtedly a heavy hitter in the brave new world of “integrative medicine,” a specialty that seeks to “integrate” pseudoscience with science, nonsense, with sense, and quackery with real medicine. In fairness, that’s not the way physicians like Dr. Katz see it. Rather, they see it as “integrating” the “best of both worlds” to the benefit of patients. However,...
How should the FDA regulate homeopathic remedies?
The FDA announced recently that it is holding a public hearing on April 21 and 22, to obtain information and comments from stakeholders about the current use of human drug and biological products labeled as homeopathic, as well as the Agency’s regulatory framework for such products. These products include prescription drugs and biological products labeled as homeopathic and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs labeled...
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Not-So-Normal Newborn Nursery: Chiropractic and Craniosynostosis
Pediatricians, particularly those who spend a significant amount of time caring for newborns, see a lot of babies with unusually-shaped heads. Although to be fair, the fact that the overwhelming majority of vaginally-delivered babies, and quite a few born via Caesarean section, will have a transient and abnormal shape to their heads makes it, well, not unusual. In fact, I rarely make...
Should the FDA crack down on homeopathic “remedies”?
In the category of potentially dangerous complementary or alternative medicine, I can think of few products worse than ones claimed to relieve asthma, yet don’t actually contain any medicine. Yet these products exist and are widely sold. Just over a year ago I described what might be the most irresponsible homeopathic treatment ever: A homeopathic asthma spray. If there was ever a...
On the “right” to challenge a medical or scientific consensus
While everyone has the "right" to challenge a scientific consensus, overthrowing a scientific consensus takes data. Lots and lots of data. Few people realize how difficult it is.
The DC as PCP? Drug Wars Resume
Chiropractors are once again engaged in intra-fraternal warfare over the chiropractic scope of practice, a saga we’ve chronicled before on SBM. (See the references at end of this post.) Every time it looks like the warring factions have buried their differences, they come rising to the surface like zombies. The International Chiropractors Association (ICA), representing the “straight” faction, wants chiropractic to continue...
A brief bit of shameless self-promotion…The Prince of Wales edition
In an effort to expand the Gorski empire almost to the level of the Crislip empire and to try to make it to somewhere within two or three orders of magnitude of the Novella empire, I’ve published an article on Slate.com about Prince Charles’ visit to our fine country entitled “Prince of Pseudoscience“. Consider this the mandatory shameless self-promotion that all SBM...