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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Boiling “integrative medicine” down to its essence in 34 words

Yesterday was a rough day for me; so I’ll be uncharacteristically brief today. As I’ve pointed out time and time again, these days, advocates of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) don’t like it so much anymore when their preferred quackery is referred to as “CAM.” Now the preferred term has–shall we say?–evolved to a happy […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Another reason why NCCAM can never be truly scientific

I’ve frequently been critical fo the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) for funding dubious studies of pseudoscience and, in essence, promoting unscientific quackademic medicine (is there any other kind?) by giving it the patina of seeming respectability. I can’t recall how many times I’ve seen promoters of woo justify their woo by […]

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Biology Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Overselling preclinical results

As part of my ongoing effort to make sure that I never run out of blogging material, I subscribe to a number of quack e-mail newsletters. In fact, sometimes I think I’ve probably overdone it. Every day, I get several notices and pleas from various wretched hives of scum and quackery, such as NaturalNews.com, Mercola.com, […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

“Ayurgenomics”: The return of woo-omics

Every so often, I come across something in the world of woo that leaves my jaw dangling from its joint in utter astonishment that anyone could think such a thing was a good idea. Sometimes these things are investigations into various paranormal phenomena. Sometimes, it’s the latest anti-science denialist screed from a creationist. Other times, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Acupuncture works for polycystic ovary syndrome except when it doesn’t–which is always

For some reason, when it comes to so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) therapies, acupuncture gets a pass. Homeopathy, for example, is based on ideas so inherently ridiculous that they quite properly attract the scorn of skeptics and advocates of science-based medicine everywhere, stating, as it does, that diluting a remedy to nonexistence makes it […]