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Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

“Practice drift”: A feature, not a bug, in “integrative medicine”

Two prominent advocates of “integrative medicine” bemoan the “practice drift” they see in their specialty, in which doctors drift farther and farther away from their training. What this means is (although it would never be admitted) is that these “integrative medicine” doctors are drifting further and further into quackery. Too bad this is a feature, not a bug.

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

Dr. Robin Berzin, functional medicine concierge practices, and the marketing of medical pseudoscience

Dr. Robin Berzin founded a concierge functional medicine practice, Parsley Health. Her practice is growing and has expanded to three major cities thus far, and she’s begun a foray into pediatrics? Are holistic concierge medical practices the future of “integrating” quackery into medicine, be it functional medicine or other models?

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Biology Cancer Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

No, the PSA test probably didn’t save Ben Stiller’s life

A frequent topic of discussion on this blog is the concept of overdiagnosis. It’s a topic I’ve been writing about regularly since around 2007 or so and is defined as the detection in an asymptomatic person of disease that, if left alone, would never progress to endanger that person’s life or well-being within his or […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Jennifer Margulis: Another rising star in the antivaccine movement

I’ve mentioned Dr. Paul Thomas before as a rising star in the antivaccine movement. A month and a half later, it occurs to me that I haven’t given proper due to his co-author, Jennifer Margulis, as an equally prominent rising star in the same crank movement. Here, I rectify that oversight.

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Bad science Cancer Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

The quackademic avalanche: Is it too late for the pebbles to vote?

I’ve documented the infiltration of quackery into academic medicine through the “integration” of mystical and prescientific treatment modalities into medicine. Here, I look at a seemingly small incident, a veritable pebble in the quackademic avalanche. Is it too late for the pebbles to vote?