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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Old wine in a new skin: The Society for Integrative Oncology promotes integrating pseudoscience into oncology

Last week, I discussed a monograph published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs entitled Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Use of Integrative Therapies as Supportive Care in Patients Treated for Breast Cancer. As you might remember, I was completely unimpressed. However, those guidelines were not the only thing in that particular JNCI […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

No, the CDC did not just apologize and admit that this year’s flu vaccine doesn’t work

If there’s one thing about having a demanding day job, it’s that the cranks usually have the advantage. They can almost always hit first when a news story comes out that they can spin to attack their detested science. On the other hand, it usually ensures that by the time I get home, have dinner, […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

A cancer cure testimonial for “traditional healing” of leukemia

Cancer cure testimonials due to alternative medicine have been a staple of this blog since its very inception. Unfortunately, another staple of this blog since very early on has included stories of children with cancer whose lives have been endangered when their their parents refuse effective cancer therapy for their cancer, in particular chemotherapy. The […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

The Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine

I happened to have a busy day yesterday, and in addition today’s a deadline to submit a letter of intent for a grant application, as well as to write a response to some criticism in a letter to the editor of my recent Nature Reviews Cancer article. (Trust me, it’s fun.) Never one to let […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Old wine in a new skin: The Society for Integrative Oncology issues guidelines for breast cancer

It should come as a surprise to no one that I’m not exactly a fan of “integrative oncology”—or integrative medicine, or “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), or whatever its proponents want to call it these days. After all, I’ve spent nearly ten years writing this blog and nearly seven years running another blog dedicated to […]