Tag: integrative medicine
Bye Bye Bravewell
Exactly one year ago tomorrow, The Bravewell Collaborative shut down, an event so momentous that few seem to have noticed. It’s been a while since we at SBM devoted much attention to Bravewell, although, at one time, its doings were a regular feature of SBM posts. For those of you not familiar with Bravewell, a brief history. The main mover and shaker...
Health and Wellness Coaching: cautious optimism and some concerns
The National Consortium for Credentialing of Health & Wellness Coaches (NCCHWC) and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) signed an agreement last month for the launch of a national certification for individual health and wellness coaches in the U.S. According to a joint press release, the agreement is a landmark in the efforts of a dedicated group of individuals who have...
Tai Chi versus physical therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee: How CAM “rebranding” works
“Complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), now more frequently referred to as “integrative medicine” by its proponents, consists of a hodge-podge of largely unrelated treatments that range from seemingly reasonable (e.g., diet and exercise) to pure quackery (e.g., acupuncture, reiki and other “energy medicine”) that CAM proponents are trying furiously to “integrate” as coequals into science-based medicine. They do this because they have...
CAM use and chemotherapy: A negative correlation
"Complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) is represented as safe because it is administered alongside conventional medicine, despite the fact that for the vast majority of CAM modalities there is little or no evidence for efficacy. However, as a new study shows, cancer patients who use CAM tend to be more likely to refuse conventional cancer treatment.
“Integrative” medicine versus “alternative” medicine
I’ve written a lot about the language issue with respect to alternative medicine. As I like to put it (at least in shortened form), first there was quackery. Quacks did not like that name at all, and thus was born alternative medicine. And the quacks did think it good—for a while. There was a problem, however. “Alternative” medicine implied (correctly, of course)...
Medical exemptions to vaccine mandates for sale after SB277! Get ’em before they’re gone!
When California passed SB 277 into law, eliminating personal belief exemptions to school vaccine requirements and permitting only personal medical exemptions, I predicted that antivaccine quacks would start issuing bogus medical exemptions. Unfortunately, I was right.
Academic Consortium plan: force medical residents to practice integrative medicine
“Integrative medicine” (IM) is an ideological movement within medicine driven in large part by those whose livelihoods depend on its continued existence. This includes both those with positions in academic medicine and individual practitioners who use the IM brand to attract patients. Despite IM and its antecedents (alternative, complementary, alternative and complementary, complementary and integrative) having been around for about a quarter...
NCCIH Strategic Plan 2016-2021, or: Let’s try to do some real science for a change
It’s no secret that we at Science-Based Medicine (SBM) are not particularly fond of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). Formerly known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and before that the Office of Alternative Medicine, NCCIH has been the foremost government agency funding research into quackery for the last 24 years, and, of course,...
The hijacking of evidence-based medicine
A hero of the blog, John Ioannidis, worries that evidence-based medicine has been hijacked, and when Ioannidis says something we at SBM listen. But has EBM been "hijacked"?
Oregon Health & Science University SCAM Day
I was looking over a recent class catalog from my alma mater, University of Oregon. I see the Astronomy Department is having a day devoted to astrology, inviting astrologers to talk about their profession. And the Chemistry department is having alchemists give an overview on how to change base metals into gold. And, to green our energy, the Physics Department, where I...