Alternative Medicine Is Infiltrating Veterinary Continuing Education

My friend Carmen Czachor is a science-based veterinarian practicing in Port Angeles, Washington. She has alerted me to a disturbing development that she fears will “put veterinary medicine back in the dark ages.” The Washington State Department of Health is contemplating a rule change in the regulations requiring continuing education for veterinarians. Current requirements are for 30 hours of continuing education every...

/ September 6, 2016

“Non-pharmacological treatments for pain” ≠ CAM, no matter how much NCCIH wishes it so

When it comes to pain, in the mythos of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), which in recent years has morphed into "integrative medicine," anything that isn't a drug is automatically rebranded as CAM, whether it's in any way "alternative" or not.

/ September 5, 2016

Leech Therapy

Medicine can be aggravatingly slow to change and it can take years for new diagnostic or therapeutic interventions to percolate through the medical community. It can take equally long for old practices to fade. I have tried to follow the dictum of “be neither the first to try nor the last to abandon a therapy.” But nothing in the real world rivals...

/ September 2, 2016

Nada for NADA: “acudetox” not effective in addiction treatment

The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) teaches and promotes a standardized auricular acupuncture protocol, sometimes called “acudetox.” NADA claims acudetox encourages community wellness . . . for behavioral health, including addictions, mental health, and disaster & emotional trauma. I do not know what “community wellness” is or how one measures whether wellness has been successfully “encouraged.” In any event, in the NADA...

/ September 1, 2016

No Compromise on Vaccine Refusal

A new position paper released by the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests taking a hard stance against nonmedical exemptions to immunization. I agree, and the evidence suggests such a stance would increase vaccination rates and reduce the outbreaks of diseases.

/ August 31, 2016

Efforts to Encourage Breastfeeding Like the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) May Have Unintended Consequences

“Breast is best,” but current efforts to increase the rate of breastfeeding may be misguided. A recent article in JAMA Pediatrics by pediatricians Joel Bass, Tina Gartley, and Ronald Kleinman is titled “Unintended Consequences of Current Breastfeeding Initiatives.” They criticize the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), saying “there is now emerging evidence that full compliance…may inadvertently be promoting potentially hazardous practices and/or having...

/ August 30, 2016
Right-to-try

The cruel sham that will not die: Right-to-try marches on in California and beyond

State "right-to-try" bills are springing up like kudzu all over the US. Their advocates promise that they would save lives by allowing terminally ill patients access to experimental therapeutics. This is a delusion; even the most fervent supporters of right-to-try have trouble pointing to a single patient who has benefited from such a law. In reality, right-to-try laws are a cruel sham...

/ August 29, 2016

Good Thinking Society’s successful challenge to NHS homeopathy

[Editor’s note: For no reason whatsoever other than to share great news, we bring you this contribution from Michael Marshall, project director of the Good Thinking Society and vice president of the Merseyside Skeptics Society.] As regular readers of this blog may know, skeptics here in the UK have been campaigning for some time to end the funding of homeopathic remedies by...

/ August 28, 2016

An Unexpected Miscellany of Medical Malarkey

  I had originally intended a focused discussion of a single topic, but life circumstances have conspired to prevent me from doing so.  In the place of my intended post, please enjoy the following collection of hastily assembled pseudomedical odds and ends brought to my attention over the past few weeks.

/ August 26, 2016

Do pill organizers help or hurt?

In order for medication to work, getting a prescription filled isn’t enough. You have to actually take the medication. And that’s where you (the patient) come in. Estimates vary based on the population and the medication, but a reasonable assumption is that 50% of people given a prescription don’t take their medication as prescribed. In pharmacy terminology we usually call this medication...

/ August 25, 2016