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Bioethics Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Chris Wark spins the story of the Amish girl with cancer whose family refuses her chemotherapy

Here we go again. Over the last month or so, I’ve been intermittently writing about a very sad case, a case that reminds me of too many cases that have come before, such as Abraham Cherrix, Kate Wernecke, Daniel Hauser, and Jacob Stieler. All of these are stories of children who were diagnosed with highly […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

Chris beat cancer? He did indeed, but it wasn’t quackery that cured him

Chris Wark is a young man who was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2003 at age 26. He underwent appropriate surgery for his cancer but declined adjuvant chemotherapy in favor of quackery. Now promotes his testimonial, in which he tries to convince people that it was the quackery, rather than the surgery, that cured him. He even claims that surgery alone can’t cure stage 3 colon cancer, which is just plain wrong. Yes, Chris beat cancer, but it was the surgery, not the quackery, that did it.

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Medicine Quackery

A trio of woo at the UMDNJ School of Nursing in Newark

Quackademic medicine has struck again. Worse, it’s struck at one of my old stomping grounds. OK, not exactly, but rather close to a past home. Let me back up a minute. I know someone who attended nursing school at UMDNJ. It’s actually a very good nursing school, but, alas, it has a serious woo streak […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine Quackery

Elle Macpherson’s breast cancer: Another example of how antivax and quackery are inseparable

When last I wrote about Elle Macpherson, she was dating Andrew Wakefield. I now learn that she treated her breast cancer with quackery. One more time, antivax and quackery are inseparable, and portraying the choice of quackery as “brave” is irresponsible.

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Cancer Medicine Quackery

FitScriptâ„¢: Yet more “functional” cancer quackery

Perusing the hellscape that is what Twitter has degenerated into as X, I found an alternative cancer cure testimonial, which led me into “functional health” nonsense that I hadn’t encountered before. Introducing FitScriptâ„¢, “functional” cancer quackery.