Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

Why would naturopaths want to prescribe those evil big pharma drugs?

Recently, there’s been a movement afoot among purveyors of that special brand of “natural” woo known as naturopathy to convince various legislatures and regulatory bodies that they not only are capable of serving as primary care physicians but that they should be allowed to do so. My first impression was laughter–that is, until I realized […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

The Catholic Church versus Reiki

Nearly two weeks ago, P.Z. Myers mentioned a story that would normally have provoked a post by me. Specifically, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had issued a warning against the use of reiki as being unscientific, unproven, and, worse, “dangerous to Christian spiritual health.” Unfortunately, this story came out right before Autism Awareness Month […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

The mindset of an antivaccinationist revealed, courtesy of Jake Crosby of The Age of Autism blog

Readers may have noticed that we’ve had a minor antivaccine troll infestation in a couple of previous posts. It’s no big deal of course, hardly worth my attention–except for one thing. That one thing is that a certain member of the antivaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism, for which no evidence that vaccines are not […]

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

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Realigning your frequency, triphase style

If there’s one concept that seems to cross many “disciplines” of woo (a.k.a. “alternative medicine,” a.k.a. “complementary and alternative medicine,” a.k.a. CAM) is the concept of some sort of “life force” or “life energy.” It is true that life does depend upon the utilization of energy, specifically chemical energy. That’s what biologists and biochemists mean […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

The antivaccine movement ain’t gonna like this one bit…

Whatever you think of President Obama’s economic stimulus package, there’s one thing that I, at least, am happy to learn about it: Vice President Joe Biden announced today that the Obama Administration will make $2.3 billion available for crucial health and human services programs that help to provide care for children and prevent disease. States […]