Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Quackery Television

Hugh Laurie and Conan O’Brien: “I want actual medicine!”

I didn’t get to see this interview last night on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. After all, I usually show up at work between 7:00 and 7:30 AM. However, Hugh Laurie, star of House, was interviewed by Conan and revealed himself to be not unlike me in that he’s definitely a booster of reason and […]

Categories
Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking Surgery

Facepalm, thy name is Dr. Egnor! Or: I find your excess of faith in the scientific abilities of physicians…disturbing

I have to wonder if the most famous denizen of the Discovery Institute in medical circles, Dr. Michael Egnor, is on vacation or something. For some reason, he’s been especially active over at the Discovery Institute’s repository of pseudoscience, Evolution News & Views, over the last couple of weeks. Neurosurgeons tend to be very busy […]

Categories
Anti-Semitism Bioethics History Holocaust Medicine Science World War II

Was Nazi science good science? (Part II)

My original post that asked the intentionally provocative question Was Nazi science good science? provoked a lot of comments, some of which made me think, which is good. This post was inspired by an article in which historian of the Nazi era Richard Evans was featured in a story about Nazi science and expressed his […]

Categories
Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

Patient-led “clinical trials” versus clinical research

In 2007, I wrote a series of posts about what I found to be a fascinating yet at the same time disturbing phenomenon, specifically self-experimentation by cancer patients using an as yet unapproved drug called dichloroacetate. If you’ll recall, DCA is a small molecule drug that was used to treat congenital lactic acidosis in children […]

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

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Another model goes woo

What is it about celebrity models and credulity towards woo? Very early in the history of this blog, we first encountered Suzanne Somers, someone who underwent lumpectomy and radiation therapy for breast cancer, as well as radiation, but eschewed chemotherapy for “alternative” medicine. Guess to what she attributed her survival? Then she got into bioidentical […]