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Medicine Politics Religion Science

Fundamentalist religion, misinformation, and the controversy over embryonic stem cell research in Michigan

Two years ago, there was a brouhaha in Missouri over a ballot proposal to allow state funding for embryonic stem cell research using discarded embryos from fertility clinics. The issue made national news, including some rather despicable rhetoric from Rush Limbaugh about Michael J. Fox, who made ads in support of the Missouri initiative, as […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Dr. Rashid Buttar wants you to ask him a question

You remember Dr. Rashid Buttar, don’t you? He’s that blight on North Carolina’s medical establishment, known for his “transdermal chelation therapy” that he’s unable to demonstrate as being able to be absorbed through the skin, much less chelate anything (arguably a good thing, actually, because at least it probably doesn’t hurt anyone, as a real […]

Categories
Bioethics Medicine

The gentle art of persuasion

There are times in every physician’s career when he or she faces a patient with a serious, even life-threatening disease or condition, who, for whatever reason, does not want treatment. These can be incredibly frustrating and challenging patients. Most physicians try reason, cajoling, and persuasion. Believe it or not, physicians are still held in enough […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Breast Cancer Awareness Month abused by Mike Adams, 2008 edition

I’ll give Mike Adams one thing. He’s consistent. Consistently a crank, that is. Yes, that purveyor of woo, paranoia, and conspiracy theories, not to mention the creator of one of the five largest repositories of quackery support on the Internet, NaturalNews.com, the other three being Mercola.com, Whale.to, CureZone, and Gary Null, is up to his […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

“Targeted” drugs not as “targeted’ as hoped?

I hate it when an article starts right out with a rather annoying usage of terminology, even when it provides information that interests me: (AP) — Nearly a fourth of widely used new-generation biological drugs that treat several common diseases produce serious side effects that lead to safety warnings soon after they go on the […]