Year: 2012
“Obama Promises $156 Million to Alzheimer’s…But where will the money come from?” That’s easy: the NCCAM!
The quoted language above is part of the headline of this story in today’s The Scientist: Citing the rising tide of Americans with Alzheimer’s—projections suggest 10 million people will be afflicted by 2050—the Obama administration and top National Institutes of Health officials are taking action. On February 7, they announced that they will add an additional $80 million to the 2013 NIH...
Antipodean CAM
It is one of the pleasures of travel to read the local newspapers of places I visit. I wholly agree with In a Sunburned Country author Bill Bryson, who observed, It always amazes me how seldom visitors bother with local papers. Personally I can think of nothing more exciting – certainly nothing you could do in a public place with a cup...
Teaching Pseudoscience In Universities
The debate about teaching so-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in universities and medical schools rages on. Attention has turned recently to Australia, where the infiltration of CAM into universities is a growing problem. A new group has formed called the Friends of Science in Medicine to advocate for maintaining high standards of science in medical academia. They have been successful in...
Applied Kinesiology by Any Other Name…
Arm wrestling is not a good way to confirm a diagnosis. But it is a great way to elicit confirmation bias.
Does thinking make it so? CAM placebo fantasy versus scientific reality
Last week, I discussed a rather execrable study. Actually, the study itself wasn’t so execrable, at least not in its design, which was a fairly straightforward three-arm randomized clinical trial. Rather it was the interpretation of the study’s results that was execrable. In brief, the authors tested an “energy healing” modality known as “energy chelation” versus a placebo (sham “energy chelation”) and...
Joe Mercola: Quackery pays
Joe Mercola makes a fine living selling questionable products for even more questionable diseases. While a recent story goes too far in telling both sides, it does reveal the scope of his profitable quack empire.
What is Science?
Consider these statements: …there is an evidence base for biofield therapies. (citing the Cochrane Review of Touch Therapies) The larger issue is what constitutes “pseudoscience” and what information is worthy of dissemination to the public. Should the data from our well conducted, rigorous, randomized controlled trial [of ‘biofield healing’] be dismissed because the mechanisms are unknown or because some scientists do not...
IgG Food Intolerance Tests: What does the science say?
I spend a lot of time as a pharmacist discussing side effects and allergies to drugs. For your own safety, I won’t recommend or dispense a drug until I know your allergy status. I don’t limit the history to drugs—I want to know anything you’re allergic to, be it environmental, food, insects, or anything else. Allergies can create true therapeutic challenges: We...
Mass Media Attention Psychogenic Syndrome – MMAPS
By now you have probably heard of the middle and high school children in LeRoy, NY who have come down with what some reports are calling a “mystery” illness. Of course it is almost obligatory to note in such stories that doctors or experts are “baffled.” There are several features of this story that are interesting from a science-based medicine and also...
Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions
I wrote an introduction to the first in a series of books republishing classic skeptical works - Oliver Wendell Holmes' Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions. Reproduced here by permission of the James Randi Educational Foundation is that introduction. Enjoy!