Month: February 2015

SSPE: A Deadly and Not-That-Rare Complication of Measles

[Editor’s note: We have two posts today, this post by our regular contributor Dr. Clay Jones, and an excellent guest post by William London about a chiropractor’s dubious neuropathy treatment protocol. Enjoy today or over the weekend!] As a pediatrician, even one who has spent the majority of his career caring only for hospitalized children, the death of a patient has been...

/ February 27, 2015

The Straw Protocol: A Chiropractor’s Aggressively Promoted Neuropathy Treatment

Full-page ads promoting free dinner seminars addressing the topic of “Non-surgical, drug-free approach to relief from Peripheral [sic] Neuropathy [sic]” appeared last year on at least nine Sundays in the main news section of the print edition of The Los Angeles Times. The seminars were scheduled at various restaurants in Orange County, Los Angeles County, and Inland Empire. The Los Angeles Times...

/ February 27, 2015

Pseudoscience North: What’s happening to the University of Toronto?

  Today’s post is a reluctant challenge. I’m nominating my own alma mater, the University of Toronto, as the new pseudoscience leader among large universities – not just in Canada, but all of North America. If you can identify a large university promoting or embracing more scientifically questionable activities, I’ll happily buy you a coffee. Yes, it’s personal to me, as I...

/ February 26, 2015

Psychology Journal Bans Significance Testing

This is perhaps the first real crack in the wall for the almost-universal use of the null hypothesis significance testing procedure (NHSTP). The journal, Basic and Applied Social Psychology (BASP), has banned the use of NHSTP and related statistical procedures from their journal. They previously had stated that use of these statistical methods was no longer required but can be optional included....

/ February 25, 2015

Placebo, Are You There?

By Jean Brissonnet, translation by Harriet Hall Note: This was originally published as “Placebo, es-tu là?” in Science et pseudo-sciences 294, p. 38-48. January 2011. It came to my attention in the course of an e-mail correspondence with the editors of that magazine, where one of my own articles was published in French translation in January 2015. I thought this was the...

/ February 24, 2015

Special thanks to Dr Andrey Pavlov

I don’t write posts very often. In fact, I’ve only ever written one before, and I didn’t even post it under my account. That’s because I’m not a doctor or a scientist, I just babysit the server on a volunteer basis. Trying to keep a site as popular as SBM running on a non-profit budget is no easy feat. Especially when everyone...

/ February 23, 2015

The Hippocrates Health Institute: Cancer quackery finally under the spotlight, but will it matter?

I first came across Brian Clement, the proprietor of the Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida, a little more than a year ago based on the story of Stephanie O’Halloran. Ms. O’Halloran was—word choice unfortunately intentional—a 23-year-old mother of an 18 month old child from Ireland who was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in 2013, with metastases to her...

/ February 23, 2015

A Day of Science and Skepticism with NECSS SfSBM

A day of Science-Based Medicine, a weekend of science and skepticism Registration for NECSS, the North-East Conference on Science and Skepticism, is now open. Included in the program will be a day of Science-Based Medicine. Full Conference schedule here with Bill Nye as the KeyNote. Speakers will be Harriet Hall, Jann Bellamy, David Gorski, Steve Novella and Mark Crislip. NECSS will be...

/ February 21, 2015

Traditional Chinese Pseudo-Medicine Hodgepodge

As I have noted before, more is published on acupuncture and traditional Chinese pseudo-medicine than the other SCAM. Here are some of the articles that drew my attention. Captain Hook and acupuncture Here is one of the more curious articles on acupuncture I have yet to find, “Psychophysical and neurophysiological responses to acupuncture stimulation to incorporated rubber hand.” I did not know...

/ February 20, 2015

2015 NHIS Report on Complementary Health Approaches (whatever that means)

Back in 2004, data from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) appeared in a report titled “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2002.” It showed a whopping 62% of adults had used CAM in the past 12 months, but only if prayer for health reasons was included. With prayer excluded, the percentage was substantially lower, at 35%. “CAM”...

/ February 19, 2015