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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery

What’s in a placebo? Mike Adams certainly doesn’t know.

If there’s one thing that confounds advocates of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), it’s the placebo effect. That’s because, whenever most such remedies are studied using rigorous clinical trial design using properly constituted placebo controls, they almost always end up showing effects no greater than placebo effects. That’s the main reason why they frequently […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Yet another cancer cure testimonial that tells us nothing

Having gotten back from the Lorne Trottier Symposium, it occurred to me that my talk (not to mention much of my blogging about “alternative medicine” cancer cure testimonials) was nearly completely about breast cancer testimonials. This is, of course, not surprising, given that breast cancer is what I do for both patient care and research. […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

The anti-vaccine movement versus the truth

My alma mater has let me down. As many of you know, I went to the University of Michigan for both my undergraduate degree and for medical school. I still have a fairly strong attachment to the school, which is why I can still be disappointed when its faculty let me down. Unfortunately, it’s happened, […]

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Cancer Medicine Quackery

Hollie Quinn defends her testimonial for breast cancer woo

A couple of weeks ago, as Breast Cancer Awareness Week was approaching, I was highly disturbed to see everybody’s favorite wretched hive of scum and quackery (The Huffington Post, in case you didn’t know) promoting a dubious breast cancer testimonial for quackery. This testimonial, contained in a book entitled You Did What? Saying “No” to […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Dr. Mark Hyman: Let’s turn back the clock on science-based medicine in favor of anecdote-based medicine

I sometimes think I ought to send a thank you letter to Dr. Mark Hyman. True, I don’t owe him quite as much as I owe, for example, Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com, anyone on the blogging crew of the anti-vaccine crank propaganda blog Age of Autism, Dr. Jay Gordon, or several other pseudoscientists, quacks, or […]