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Bioethics Biology Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

The “myth” of placebo effects

Heidi Stevenson amuses me. The reasons are legion. Be it the time when Heidi lectured scientists on anecdotal evidence (which she values far more highly than scientists, of course, declaring it the “basis of all knowledge”); launched a vile and nonsensical attack on Stephen Barrett; argued against prior plausibility with using a straw man argument […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Television

R.I.P., Seán Ó’Laighin

This will be an uncharacteristically short (for Orac) post. A couple of months ago, I wrote about the sad story of a young man from Ireland named Seán Ó’Laighin diagnosed with an inoperable brainstem glioma at age 19. Even more sadly, this young man heard about the Burzynski Clinic in Houston and believed the claims […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies

Five things I learned (second hand) from the recent screening of Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business, Part 2

Film producer Eric Merola seems to think that there is a conspiracy of skeptics (whom he calls The Skeptics) hell bent on harassing his hero, Brave Maverick Doctor Stanislaw Burzynski. According to his latest film Burzynski: Cancer Is A Serious Business, Part 2 (henceforth referred to as Burzynski II, to distinguish it from Merola’s first […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Movies Quackery

Two Stanislaw Burzynski’s “success stories”

One of the strategies that Stanislaw Burzynski will undoubtedly use to “prove” in Eric Merola’s new Stanislaw Burzynski movie that antineoplastons work in cancer will be to highlight “success stories.” Last year, Burzynski apologists frequently pointed to a girl with an inoperable brain tumor named Amelia Saunders as a success story when the U.K. press […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The Cancer Treatment Centers of America: Cherry picked patients and survival data used to sell “integrative” oncology to the masses

I’m not a big fan of Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA). That I don’t much like CTCA should come as no surprise, given that this particular hospital chain distinguishes itself from other hospital chains by advertising its full body embrace of quackery, in particular “naturopathic oncology.” At the same time as it’s advertising its […]