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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

National Infant Immunization Week 2014

And now for something completely different (sort of). Somehow, I totally forgot that the week of April 26 to May 3 is National Infant Immunization Week (NIIW), an annual observance to highlight the importance of protecting infants from vaccine-preventable diseases and celebrate the achievements of immunization programs and their partners in promoting healthy communities. In […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Politics Quackery

Naturopaths vie for Medicare reimbursement with a dubious survey

Naturopathy is a pseudodiscipline that resembles a Chinese menu of quackery, in which naturopaths select one from column A and two from column B, with each column containing a list of modalities ranging from pure quackery like homeopathy and traditional Chinese medicine to mundane modalities that naturopaths embrace, “rebrand” as “alternative,” and woo-ify and oversell […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Quackery

The "Compassionate Freedom of Choice Act of 2014": Pernicious "health freedom" nonsense that degrades human research subject protections

I was torn about what to blog about today. There were lots of things floating around that caught my eye and appear worthy of of a little taste of Insolence, either Respectful or not-so-Respectful, so much so that I couldn’t decide. None of them really stuck out. Then I saw this news story pop up […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Naturopathy Quackery

An herbal medicine clinic at the Cleveland Clinic: Quackademia triumphant

I don’t recall if I’ve ever mentioned my connection with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF). I probably have, but just don’t remember it. Longtime readers might recall that I did my general surgery training at Case Western Reserve University at University Hospitals of Cleveland. Indeed, I did my PhD there as well in the Department […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Criticism of pseudoscience and quackery is not "hate speech"

I sense a new disturbance in the antivaccine force. I hadn’t planned on blogging about the antivaccine movement again, but I felt that I needed to do a follow up to yesterday’s (hopefully) amusing little takedown of the antivaccine stylings of new member of that group personification of the Dunning-Kruger effect and arrogance of ignorance, […]