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Autism Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Patient-led “clinical trials” versus clinical research (2012 edition)

Dying of cancer can be a horrible way to go, but as a cancer specialist I sometimes forget that there are diseases that are equally, if not more, horrible. One that always comes to mind is amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is a motor neuron disease whose clinical […]

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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

MMS (a.k.a., bleach) for autism: Just when I thought I was out…

The clip above says it all with respect to “miracle mineral solution” (a.k.a. MMS). Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in. And, as Yoda would probably put it, back in I am one more time. (How’s that for mixing movie allusions?) Let’s recap. MMS is bleach. Specifically, it is a 28% […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Quackery

The lowest of the low: Trying to bleach autism away

It’s that time of year again. What am I talking about? Regular readers know. They know that sometime around the Memorial Day weekend every year, usually beginning a couple of days before the extended weekend and into the weekend itself, there lands in the Chicago area a quackfest of such unrelenting quackitude that it has […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

CAM practitioners versus preventive medicine

If there’s one claim that practitioners of “holistic” medicine frequently make, it’s that “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine” or whatever the term du jour for the combining of quackery with science-based medicine is these days is allegedly so much better than “conventional” or “allopathic” medicine (or whatever disparaging term “holistic practitioners” prefer) […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Cancer quack Robert O. Young is arrested and arraigned, but will he be convicted?

Being a cancer surgeon and researcher, naturally I tend to write about cancer a lot more than other areas of medicine and science. It’s what I know best. Also, cancer is a very common area for unscientific practices to insinuate themselves, something that’s been true for a very long time. The ideas don’t change very […]