Categories
Medicine Politics

When flame meets straw (man, that is)

It gives me no pleasure to do this, but sometimes even friends let loose with such jaw-droppingly bad arguments that it is impossible for me not to redirect a bit of the old Respectful Insolence in their direction. So it was earlier, when I saw an unreasonable article by an otherwise reasonable guy sneak into […]

Categories
Biology Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking Surgery

Popularity versus reliability in medical research

Two of the major themes on this blog since the very beginning has been the application of science- and evidence-based medicine to the care of patients and why so much of so-called “complementary and alternative” medicine, as well as fringe movements like the anti-vaccine movement, have little or–more commonly–virtually no science to support their claims […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Oh, no! Orac the “Scientific Fundamentalist” has been too insolent!

Last week, I wrote about how Senator Tom Harkin is up to his old shenanigans again, trying at ever turn to do for the actual practice of quackery what he did for the research of quackery by creating the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and what he still does to promote quackery […]

Categories
Humor Medicine Surgery

It’s not exactly brain surgery, is it?

While I”m on a Mitchell and Webb kick and it’s still a slow blogging holiday weekend, this isn’t about homeopathy but it does skewer a certain profession: You know, I can sort of picture Dr. Michael Egnor (a younger version, of course) being the brain surgeon in this sketch…

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Quackery

The Homeopathic A & E

I love Mitchell and Webb, and this is just one reason why. They totally get homeopathy, as this video e-mailed to me by a reader demonstrates: Pay close attention to the signs in the A & E. Too bad this is too late for Homeopathy Awareness Week. And they’re funny, to boot. While I’m on […]