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Announcements Cancer Friday Woo Medicine Personal Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo will be on hiatus for a while

It’s been a week now since my wife and I learned that our beloved dog, whom we’ve had for eight years, had terminal cancer. At the time I was so sad and down that I just couldn’t even imagine getting myself into the appropriately light-hearted frame of mind that I try to maintain. In the […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

When faith healers attack

While I’m taking some time to rag on TV news for its ludicrously credulous reporting of various “alternative” medicine claims, take a gander at this puff piece on a faith healer. Where’s James Randi when you need him? True, the story mentioned that not one of this faith healer’s “healings” could be independently verified with […]

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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

The costs and benefits of the latest, greatest cancer drugs

Last week, The New York Times started a rather unusual series in its medical section entitled, The Evidence Gap, described thusly: Articles in this series will explore medical treatments used despite scant proof they work and will consider steps toward medicine based on evidence. When I first saw the series, I was prepared for a […]

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Cancer Medicine Personal

Thanks to all…

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments about the recent bad news about our dog. (Even someone who really detests me because of my position on the vaccine/autism issue was in this instance kind.) I don’t know if I’ll feel much like blogging for a while; on the other hand, blogging has been therapeutic for […]

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Cancer Friday Woo Medicine Personal

Sorry, no woo for you today. Or: Cancer isn’t just for humans

Today is Friday, which has normally meant for the last two years that it’s the time every week when I poke fun at some particularly outrageous woo. Indeed. I even had a great idea for a 4th of July-themed post today that (I hope) would have been hilarious. I had even started to write a […]