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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

How not to do a study on the efficacy of “alternative” medicine

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last four years of examining the various forms of woo out there, it’s to be very, very skeptical whenever an advocate of a highly dubious-sounding “therapy” points to a study as “proof” that the therapy, whatever it is, works. Usually, what I find is a small pilot […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The woo-meister supreme returns, and he’s brought his friends

Here we go again. You know, now that it’s 2009, I had hoped that one of the most irritating people alive would continue his blissful quiet. I’m referring, of course, to Deepak Chopra, that Indian physician who demonstrates that a medical training is no protection whatsoever against pseudoscientific and anti-scientific thinking. Indeed, Chopra goes far […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Rats! My Academic Woo Aggregator is hopelessly out of date

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Resistance is futile, part 3: Maybe resistance is not futile after all

Well, I won’t back down No, I won’t back down You can stand me up at the gates of hell But I won’t back down Gonna stand my ground Won’t be turned around And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down Gonna stand my ground And I won’t back down From I Won’t Back […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

There’s no woo like Harvard woo

I’d start out by saying that here’s another one for my (in)famous Academic Woo Aggregator, except that this institution is already a part of the Woo Aggregator. The only thing I can say is that Steve Novella (who’s from Yale and has had to manage an influx of woo at his home institution) might get […]