Tag: Maine

Bills eliminating school immunizations and other anti-vaccination measures confront state legislatures

Bills eliminating school immunizations and expanding exemptions are pending in state legislatures. Other state bills strengthen immunization requirements by eliminating exemptions, among other measures. An anti-vaccination misinformation campaign is underway to influence legislators' votes.

/ February 25, 2021

“Health Freedom” group promotes legislation negating masks, other public health measures

National Health Freedom Action is promoting state legislation that would block enforcement of public health measures (e.g., mask wearing and social distancing) during epidemics and other emergencies. The organization and its allies embrace junk science and have successfully passed laws protecting quacks.

/ September 24, 2020

Legislative Alchemy 2019: Acupuncturists score Medicare coverage and scope of practice expansion 

Through the magic of legislative alchemy, acupuncture has already scored some big wins in 2020, including Medicare coverage.

/ February 13, 2020

Zapping Antipsychiatry ECT Nonsense

These days people's perceptions of electroconvulsive therapy have a fictionalized understanding of what it is, and its harms. The reality is quite different.

/ July 25, 2019

Maine considers protecting quacks from accountability to regulators and patients

The Maine Legislature is considering a bill that would put quacks beyond the reach of state healthcare regulatory authorities and leave patients without effective redress for harms.

/ April 25, 2019
Acupuncture

“Integrative medicine” advocates: Co-opting the opioid crisis to promote funding for acupuncture by Medicaid

The opioid epidemic is a serious public health crisis in the U.S., and new tools and treatments to deal with chronic pain are urgently needed. Unfortunately, where public health officials see a crisis, advocates of "integrating" quackery with science-based medicine see an opportunity. In this case, promoters of pseudomedicine are taking advantage of the opioid crisis to persuade state Medicaid systems to...

/ January 22, 2018

Legislative Alchemy 2017: Acupuncture

Acupuncture is nothing more than a theatrical placebo. Yet acupuncturists, defined as primary care practitioners in some states, are succeeding in licensing and practice expansion efforts in state legislatures.

/ January 19, 2018

Corrigendum. The Week in Review for 04/30/2017

Stroke from chiropractic. Measles in Minnesota. Fraudulent methodologies? How do your remove homeopathy from a product? Acuwhatever. And more.

/ April 30, 2017

Conspiracy theories and Ebola virus transmission

Yesterday, I spiffed up a post that some of you might have seen, describing how a particular medical conspiracy theory has dire consequences in terms of promoting non-science-based medical policy. Specifically, I referred to how the myth that there are all sorts of “cures” for deadly and even terminal diseases that are being kept from you by an overweening fascistic FDA’s insistence...

/ November 3, 2014