Results for: homeopathy
Why Does This Immunologist Reject Vaccinations?
Vaccination is arguably medicine’s greatest success. It has eradicated smallpox and has saved millions from death and suffering from a growing list of preventable diseases. It’s surprising that it has so many critics. Most of them are either not educated in medical science (like Jenny McCarthy) or are educated but prefer to reject science in favor of anecdotal experience (like Jay Gordon)....
Breast cancer myths: No, antiperspirants do not cause breast cancer
Antivaccine activists frequently claim that aluminum salts used as adjuvants in vaccines cause autism. However, if you listen to the quacks and cranks, that's not all aluminum does. Oh, no, that nefarious metal is also being blamed for breast cancer. But don't throw away your antiperspirant just yet. The evidence cited to support this connection is utterly unconvincing. Much of it even...
Yahoo News spews NaturalNews anti-vaccine (and other) propaganda
Yahoo News appears to have confused NaturalNews with actual news. It’s not. NaturalNews is the in-house propaganda organ for Mike Adams, whom I’ll introduce in a minute (although he needs no introduction for most readers here). A couple of recent examples: A recycled story, over a year old, from NaturalNews, appearing on Yahoo News last week. It starts out as...
Quackademia update: The Cleveland Clinic, George Washington University, and the continued infiltration of quackery into medical academia
Quackery has been steadily infiltrating academic medicine for at least two decades now in the form of what was once called “complementary and alternative medicine” but is now more commonly referred to as “integrative medicine.” Of course, as I’ve written many times before, what “integrative medicine” really means is the “integration” of quackery with science- and evidence-based medicine, to the detriment of...
Hiccups: From Acupuncture to Quantum Touch
nOne of the most common questions I get in the newborn nursery, especially from first time parents, involves hiccups. Babies hiccup in the womb and most, if not all of them, will have periodic bouts of hiccups in the neonatal period. But many new parents are surprised by their baby’s first spasmodic contractions of the diaphragm. When brought up, it is often...
Bad News and Good News from Down Under: Science-Based Medicine in Australia
The bad news: in a disturbing attempt to woo customers, some Australian pharmacists are offering in-store consultations with naturopaths. The good news: Australian skeptics and supporters of science have had a lot of recent successes in combatting quackery. Non-Doc in a Box In an article in the Australian magazine The Skeptic, Loretta Marron reports on naturopaths in pharmacies. You can read it...
Do doctors pay attention to negative randomized clinical trials?
We at the Science-Based Medicine blog believe that all medicine, regardless of where it comes from, should be held to a single science-based standard with regards to efficacy, effectiveness, and safety. We tend to focus primarily on “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), now more commonly known as “integrative medicine,” because (1) we believe it to be undermining the scientific basis of medicine...
Rationalizing the Ridiculous: Acupuncture
I remain flummoxed. How do physicians and health care systems, trained in all the sciences that lie at the heart of medicine, justify the use of pseudo-medical interventions with no basis in reality? Rationalization. Making excuses: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and...
Missouri tackles primary care shortage with “assistant physicians”
A new law in Missouri will allow medical school graduates who have not completed a residency to practice in underserved areas. They will be able to call themselves “doctor” but will be licensed as “assistant physicians” with significant limitations on their practice. (The first link is to Senate Bill 716, the bill that was passed and signed by the governor. It covers...
The Human Mold: Another Example of Self-Deception
José Jarimba believes that our bodies are physically molded into an asymmetric form by our mothers’ sleeping positions during pregnancy, that this has lifelong adverse impacts on health, and that shoe inserts can eliminate pain and other health problems by realigning the body. This is a silly untested hypothesis by a single individual. As such, it would be too minor to merit...