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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

“Woo-omics” at NCCAM

Just when I start to think that maybe, just maybe, I could stop worrying and learn to love the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM, with apologies to Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers), damn if it doesn’t go and do something that renews my cynicism about the entire Center. This time around, Dr. […]

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Announcements

The 59th Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle: Untitled skepticism

Well, it’s that time again, time for another foray into battle against the rampant credulity that permeates the blogosphere. This time, your host is a veteran who has hosted two previous Meetings of the Skeptics’ Circle and produced some of the most memorable Circles we’ve had. After two abortive attempts at a format, he’s come […]

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Cancer Entertainment/culture Medicine Movies

Ever wonder what happened to Roger Ebert?

Ever wonder what happened to Roger Ebert, who has been absent from the balcony in his Ebert & Roeper Show for quite some time battling cancer? So did I. I always liked his style and mostly agreed with his movie reviews, but since moving away from Chicago I haven’t heard much or watched the show […]

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Medicine Politics Science

Wiley & Sons: When “fair use” equals “no use”

This is the sort of thing that really irritates me. Shelley, over at Retrospectacle posted a rather nice analysis of a paper that appeared in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture entitled Natural volatile treatments increase free-radical scavenging capacity of strawberries and blackberries. She was skeptical about news reports and press releases […]

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Cancer Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Peter Duesberg, chromosomal chaos, and cancer: An intriguing hypothesis argued poorly

A lot of readers (well, a couple, anyway) have been asking me about the recent article by Peter Duesberg in the most recent issue of Scientific American entitled Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer. I suppose it’s because I’m not only a cancer surgeon (which in and of itself is not enough to qualify me to comment […]