Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Quackery

The more things change, the more they stay the same

This is true with respect to chiropractic, anyway. Just get a load of this ad from 1922: (Click on picture for a larger image.) You know, tart this ad up with some color and better graphics, and it wouldn’t be out of place today making claims like this: Fastest growing healing profession, outstripping all others. […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

An update on the youth who “cured himself” of melanoma, Chad Jessop

About a month and a half ago, I discussed an e-mail that was being propagated far and wide that described the case of the mother of a 17 year old male who, or so the e-mail claimed, cured her son of stage IV melanoma using “natural means” and was supposedly thrown in maximum security prison […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

A new voice takes on the inflitration of woo into academic medicine

If you think Orac’s insolence doesn’t live up to the name of this blog, at least when it comes to lamenting the infiltration of unscientific, non-evidence-based modalities into academic medicine, such as the use of reiki in a top academic trauma hospital, woo finding its way into the mandatory curriculum of a prestigious medical center […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Oxy-woo and the energized sound

In retrospect, I feel a little guilty about last week’s edition of Your Friday Dose of Woo. As a couple of commenters pointed out, the guy responsible for the woo seems as though he’s a bit disturbed, as evidenced by the ransom note-style literature on his website and the news story that mentioned how his […]

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Vitamin D and cancer: The difference between cranks and mainstream science

Despite the diatribes that appear here on a regular basis bemoaning the unscientific and sometimes dangerous claims made for so-called “alternative medicine” modalities, I’ll be among the first to admit that in some cases it’s not always clear what is “alternative” about some therapies. Indeed, there seems to be an intentional effort to “rebrand” some […]