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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

One last update (for now) on the youth who “cured himself” of melanoma, Chad Jessop

I hadn’t intended to write about this again, at least not for a while, but curiosity got the better of me. About a month and a half ago, I discussed a highly dubious story that was going around by e-mail about a 17-year-old boy with melanoma whose mother supposedly “cured” him with “natural” treatments. As […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Quackery

A vision of the future of medicine

Along with Dr. R. W., I’ve become known for my rather vociferously expressed dismay at the ever increasing infiltration of unscientific and non-evidence-based woo in the form of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) into academic medical centers. Well, thanks to a reader, I’ve seen a vision of the future of American medicine, and it’s frightening. […]

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Announcements Blog housekeeping Blogging

2,000,000

I demand the sum of…..two MILLION visits! Muhahahahahaha! Yes, I know I did that bit before, but I liked it so much that I wanted to do it again. Sometime yesterday, this blog hit another milestone. Sometime yesterday morning, Respectful Insolence™ recorded its 2,000,000th visitor. Unfortunately, “sometime yesterday” was while I was at work, and, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion Skepticism/critical thinking

Religion and refusing medical treatment: Would you die for your religion?

This is getting depressing. Yesterday, I did a brief post on the tragic story of a nine month old baby named Gloria Thomas whose father, a homeopath, put his faith in homeopathic medicines to treat her severe eczema and who as a consequence did not receive the necessary medical treatment she needed and died of […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Alternative medicine: No humility in the face of disease

Panda Bear MD has posted the second part of his series about the irrationality behind much of “alternative” (a.k.a. non-evidence-based) medicine. He makes an excellent point: At no time however, will your physicians ever promise a magic cure, a therapy that will definitively fix the problem with no ill effects leaving alone the precarious balance […]