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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Kris Kristofferson: The latest celebrity quackery victim

If you grew up, as I did, a child of the 1970s in the US (I graduated from high school in 1980), you probably couldn’t escape the influence of Kris Kristofferson. He was big, and he was at his biggest during the 1970s, pumping out country music and mainstream hits, appearing in movies, and generally […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

How to annoy your pediatrician with antivaccine nonsense, VaxTruth.org edition

There are reasons that I’m not a pediatrician. First, and foremost, I like surgery. Indeed, when I first entered medical school, my intent was to become an academic internist, but things didn’t quite work out that way. To my surprise, when I did my surgery rotation I liked it way more than I ever thought […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture

Rob Schneider cries “FREEDOM!” to refuse vaccination

This weekend was the 4th of July, Independence Day. It’s the most patriotic holiday of all, at least for Americans. We celebrated it in the usual way, with parades, fireworks, the odd lost digit or two, and barbecues. Unfortunately, there’s another thing that the 4th of July inevitably brings on as well, and that’s the […]

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Medicine

The dangers of stem cell tourism

It’s been over three weeks now since hockey legend Gordie Howe died at the age of 88. Detroit, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, is a serious hockey town, as hockey-crazy as any town in Canada (just look at the fancy new hockey arena being built downtown only a mile from where I work), and it […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

What’s the harm? Cupping edition

There are so many ridiculous alternative medicine treatments being “integrated” via “integrative” medicine into medicine, no matter how ridiculous they are, that it’s not only hard to believe, but it’s hard to keep track. Homeopathy is, of course, the most ridiculous, although “energy medicine” definitely gives homeopathy a run for its money in the Department […]