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

On “helping” that is anything but

Cancer is a bitch. Depending upon what organ is involved and what kind of cancer it is, it can be incredibly hard to cure. All too often, it is incurable, particularly when it involves the brain, pancreas, esophagus, or other organs. People wonder why, after over 40 years of a “war on cancer,” we don’t […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Cutting, poisoning, and burning naturally

Not too long ago, a reader asked me about black salve, and then not too long later I saw a commenter mention black salve. It occurs to me that, in all the years I’ve been doing this blog and my other blog, I don’t think I’ve ever actually written about black salve, except in passing. […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Religion and quackery: Pure synergy

Those of us who support science-based medicine and do our part to expose and combat quackery are naturally outraged at how rarely quacks are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. All too often, all we can expect is for doctors practicing such chicanery to lose their medical licenses and be temporarily shut down. […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The legacy of Andrew Wakefield continues

Actions have consequences. No matter how much the person might want to try to hide from the consequences of one’s actions, they frequently have a way of coming back, grabbing you by the neck, and letting you know they’re there. We see it happening now in the U.K. Fifteen years ago, British doctor Andrew Wakefield […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Calling out false “balance” on vaccines and autism

Manufactroversy. It’s wonderful, made-up word that describes a phenomenon so aptly, so brilliantly, that I like to use it all the time. Basically the word describes a manufactured controversy that is motivated by either extreme ideology (virtually always crank ideology) and/or profit that is intentionally stoked to create public confusion about a scientific issue that […]