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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Laetrile: Everything old is new again, or at least Eric Merola hopes so

Remember our old buddy Eric Merola? He’s the guy who made two—count ’em—two crappy, conspiracy-laden, misinformation-ridden, astonishingly bad bits of “great man” propaganda disguised as documentaries about a Houston cancer doctor peddling unproven cancer treatments and charging his patients tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege of being under his care […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

The Alliance for Natural Health says that as though it were a bad thing…

The vast majority of what is known as “alternative medicine” is quackery. Let’s just get that right out front right from the very beginning of this post. That’s where I’m coming from, and where I’m coming from is a science- and evidence-based viewpoint. To quote a cliche that is true and modified to my own […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery Religion Science

More Tooth Fairy science studying acupuncture

I must confess, I had a rather rough time yesterday. Actually, it’s been a rough winter, at least as far as my car is concerned. Record amounts of snow and a January much colder than usual have wreaked havoc on the roads around where I live, producing craters that make our roads and freeways look […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Leaving the cult of antivaccinationism and alt-med

The other day, I got to thinking about cults. The reason is that it’s been clear to me for some time that the antivaccine movement is a quack cult. In fact, a lot of quack groups are very cultish, the example that reminded me of this having been an excellent report published by a young […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Thinker. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

After yesterday’s detailed analysis of a study that’s being touted far and wide as “evidence” that vitamin C cures cancer, I thought I deserved a bit of a break. No, that doesn’t mean I’m going to take the day off from blogging. (Obviously, as you’re reading this now.) It does mean that I plan on […]