Year: 2014

Evaluating Treatment Claims: A Primer

I recently wrote about the claim that acupuncture can improve vision in patients with macular degeneration. In response, I received this e-mail: At Discovery Eye Foundation we have an education and outreach program for people with age-related macular degeneration, the Macular Degeneration Partnership. We are constantly getting calls from people who have heard of a new “cure” or a way to stop...

/ July 15, 2014

The Texas Medical Board vs. Stanislaw Burzynski, 2014 edition

Here we go again. I'll give the Texas Medical Board credit for one thing. It's persistent. It's going after Stanislaw Burzynski's medical license again. Will this finally be the time the TMB puts a stop to Burzynski's abuse of the clinical trial process and patients? Or will this be a replay of the 1990s, with Burzynski slithering away yet again?

/ July 14, 2014

The Truth?

Summertime and the living is easy. I am in Sunriver, Oregon for the week and I though, hilariously, that I would have plenty of time to write a post. Between the hiking, the biking, the golf, the food and the beer, there has been little time to sit in from of a keyboard. There may be no better place to spend a...

/ July 11, 2014

Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine research conference disappoints even NCCAM

In May, the International Research Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health (IRCIMH) conference was held in Miami. In the words of its website, the conference was “convened by” the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine (CAHCIM), “in association with” the International Society for Complementary Medicine Research. As CAHCIM chirped in this tweet: “Three days, 22 countries, 100 academic medical institutions,...

/ July 10, 2014

An Egregious Example of Ordering Unnecessary Tests

Last week I wrote about doctors who order unnecessary tests, and the excuses they give. Then I ran across an example that positively flabbered my gaster. A friend’s 21-year-old son went to a board-certified family physician for a routine physical. This young man is healthy, has no complaints, has no past history of any significant health problems and no family history of...

/ July 8, 2014

Medical marijuana as the new herbalism, part 1: Science versus the politics of weed in New York and beyond

Medical marijuana. It's promoted as a seeming panacea that can cure whatever ails you. While there are potentially useful medicinal compounds in marijuana, in general the medical marijuana movement vastly oversells the promise. The truth is far more prosaic and nuanced.

/ July 7, 2014

The Buzzy: Revolutionary Acute Pain Management or Simple Distraction…

I’ve written about the management of acute pain in children in the past, and unfortunately my feelings haven’t changed in the interim. Acute pain, particularly pain related to procedures such as venipuncture for blood sampling and intravenous access, and intramuscular administration of medications such as antibiotics and vaccines, is commonly undertreated, downplayed and even ignored altogether by medical professionals and even caregivers....

/ July 4, 2014

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Separating facts from fiction

Does multiple chemical sensitivity exist? The symptoms certainly do, but it's less clear if they are due to "chemicals".

/ July 3, 2014

The Center for Inquiry weighs in on the FDA’s mishandling of Stanislaw Burzynski’s clinical trials

The Center for Inquiry points out how what Stanislaw Burzynski is doing corrupts the clinical trial process and harms patients.

/ July 3, 2014

Beware The P-Value

The p-value was meant to be used as a convenient and quick test to evaluate how likely a result was due to chance, or a real effect. It has since come to be treated as an indication of importance or truth, particularly in the CAM world. This is a problem.

/ July 2, 2014