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Clinical trials Medicine Quackery Surgery

Avoiding scientific delusions

I happen to be in Phoenix today, attending the Academic Surgical Congress, where I actually have to present one of my abstracts. That means, between flying to Phoenix last night and preparing for my talk, I didn’t have time to serve up a heapin’ helping of that Respectful Insolence™ you know and (hopefully) love. Fortunately, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

“Alternative medical income” (a.k.a. “woo pays the bills”)

I’ve written a lot about alternative medicine, much of which I consider to be woo; i.e., treatments for which there is no medical efficacy and the belief in which often requires magical thinking. I’ve expressed my disappointment in medical physicians who fall prey to and become purveyors or woo, doctors such as Dr. Deepak Chopra, […]

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

Rosie O’Donnell vs. David Kirby on the “causation” issue of autism: Guess who loses?

Pity poor David Kirby. After all, he made his name by hitching his star to a losing hypothesis, namely that the mercury in thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. He wrote a book about it, Evidence of Harm, back in 2005 and has milked that sucker dry ever since. Most recently, his appearances culminated in a […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Critical thinking and the scientific method in medical education

It’s things like this over at Over My Med Body! that show our friend Graham really knows how to make a humble guy like Orac feel the love: Big name bloggers like Orac and Dr. RW and KevinMD are all up in arms about how “medical schools are going the wrong way” and asking “Does […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery Religion

Muslims shouldn’t be vaccinated?

Via Black Triangle, I’m made aware of another example of religious fundamentalism interfering with sound health care: A MUSLIM doctors’ leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is “un-Islamic”. Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical […]