Tag: clinical trial

Pfizer COVID vaccine

The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t prevent transmission: Antivax disinformation goes viral again

Last week, antivaxxers were all over social media after Tucker Carlson touted a "revelation" that the phase 3 clinical trial used to support licensure of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine didn't examine its ability to block transmission as meaning that its inability to block transmission had been "covered up". It wasn't, and antivaxxers are ignoring everything we've learned over the last two years...

/ October 17, 2022

More False Hope for People with Tourette Syndrome

After a few years off, this is the third and final installment in a long-running series of posts tackling the claims made by proponents of an oral appliance for the treatment of Tourette Syndrome.

/ August 5, 2022

Vitamin D for the prevention of COVID-19: A randomized controlled trial

A large clinical trial shows vitamin D supplementation had no effect on COVID-19.

/ March 31, 2022

The Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study (SCOTS): Part 2

Today we continue an analysis of a dubious stem cell clinical trial, with an examination of the clinic and personnel involved.

/ March 26, 2022

The Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study

In this study we have 300 patients with 47 different diseases subject to 7 experimental treatments among 3 treatment groups and no control group. What could possibly go right?

/ December 27, 2021
Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

To unblind or not to unblind? That is the question about clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines

Antivaccine alternative health tycoon Joe Mercola claims that the unblinding of participants in the clinical trials of Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines was intended to "blow up the trials" and undermine the science, making it impossible ever to identify long term adverse events. What he's really doing is deceptively oversimplifying complex ethical and scientific issues surrounding these trials in the middle of...

/ April 26, 2021

A Worthless Acupuncture Study in Cancer Patients

This study does not test the efficacy of acupuncture and was never designed to do so.

/ March 24, 2021

The effectiveness of zinc and vitamin C on the duration of COVID-19 infections

Vitamin C and zinc have been heralded as treatments for colds for decades, but how well do they work against COVID-19? A new clinical trial provides the answer.

/ February 18, 2021
Acupuncture for xerostomia

Spinning a negative acupuncture study: Same as it ever was

Investigators at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center reported the results of a trial of acupuncture for xerostomia (dry mouth) secondary to radiation therapy for head and neck cancers. It was a negative trial, but investigators still tried to spin it as positive, but with a twist. There was a large difference between results found at M.D. Anderson and the second site in China....

/ December 9, 2019

Clínica 0-19: False hope in Monterrey for brain cancer patients (part 2)

Last week, I discussed Clínica 0-19, a clinic in Monterrey, Mexico whose doctors claim to be able to treat the deadly brainstem cancer DIPG using intra-arterial chemotherapy and immunotherapy. This week, I discuss what I've learned since last week, specifically a lot more about just what it is that these doctors do, why it is scientifically dubious and unproven, and why I...

/ July 2, 2018