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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

CAM usage and vaccination status

I’ve often discussed how potentially misleading anecdotal evidence and experience can be. Indeed, I’ve managed to get into quite a few–shall we say?–heated discussions with a certain woo-friendly pediatrician, who, so confident in his own clinical judgment, just can’t accept that his own personal clinical observations could be wrong or even horribly mislead him. Sadly, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The American Academy of Family Physicians goes woo

One of the most frustrating aspects of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” is how much it’s managed to bypass the scientific orientation of academic medical institutions and insinuate itself deeply into medical academia. Indeed, Dr. R. W. Donnell once quite aptly referred to this phenomenon, where wildly implausible claims with no science behind them somehow […]

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Medicine Quackery

A trio of woo at the UMDNJ School of Nursing in Newark

Quackademic medicine has struck again. Worse, it’s struck at one of my old stomping grounds. OK, not exactly, but rather close to a past home. Let me back up a minute. I know someone who attended nursing school at UMDNJ. It’s actually a very good nursing school, but, alas, it has a serious woo streak […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The Top 5 Threats to Science-Based Medicine of the Decade

While I’m recovering fro Christmas this weekend and away a good chunk of tomorrow, here’s a question to ponder as 2009 draws to its inevitable close. Val Jones has listed what she views to be the top five threats to science-based medicine that dominated 2009 and look likely to continue to threaten science in medicine […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Bringing woo to disaster areas

Almost two years ago, I discovered something that disturbed me greatly. Basically, I learned the story of an Air Force officer named Col. Richard Niemtzow, MD, PhD. Col. Niemtzow is a radiation oncologist who has over the last decade fallen deeply into woo. Specifically, he has become known for a technique that he has dubbed […]