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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Who can quack the loudest?

Over the years this blog’s been in existence, I’ve fallen into a habit in which I tend to like to finish off the week taking on a bit of science (well, usually pseudoscience) that is either really out there, really funny, or in general not as heavy as, for example, writing about someone like Stanislaw […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Science fiction/fantasy Skepticism/critical thinking

It works every time, doesn’t it?

Every so often I come across a news story relevant to the subject matter usually encompassed by this blog that makes me shake my head in disbelief at the sheer stupidity. OK, every day, if you count the antivaccine movement and its attacks on papers like the one I wrote about Monday and yesterday. True, […]

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

“Common sense” that isn’t

“Common sense” is not so common. Actually, that’s not exactly right. What I meant was that what most people think of as “common sense” has little or nothing to do with what science concludes. Evidence talks, “common sense” walks. I saw a fantastic example to illustrate this point on a certain blog that I’ve found […]

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

Criticizing the Trial to Asess Chelation Therapy (TACT) is defending science-based medicine

When I wrote about the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) trial last week, little did I suspect that I would be revisiting the topic again so soon. For those of you not familiar with TACT, it was a trial designed to test a favorite quack treatment for cardiovascular disease, chelation therapy. It is, as […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

A founding father of quackademic medicine speaks

It’s been a while since I’ve written about Brian Berman. We first met him when he somehow managed to insinuate a “case report” of chronic low back pain into The New England Journal of Medicine in which he recommended acupuncture for this patient. Dr. Berman also happens to be a founder of quackademic medicine on […]