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Clinical trials Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking Sports

How “they” view “us”: Gordie Howe edition

Yesterday was a very strange day, at least on the Internet. I really should learn to remove Twitter from my iPhone on Wednesdays. Why? Wednesdays tend to be my administrative days. I’m not in clinic seeing patients nor am I in the operating room. That’s why Wednesday tends to be one of the two days […]

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Biology Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking Sports

About Gordie Howe’s “miraculous recovery” after stem cell treatment in Mexico

Seven years ago I returned to Michigan, where I was born and spent the first quarter century of my life, after an absence of more than 20 years. In the interim, I had done my surgical residency and earned my PhD in Cleveland, a surgical oncology fellowship in Chicago, and worked in New Jersey at […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Old wine in a new skin: The Society for Integrative Oncology promotes integrating pseudoscience into oncology

Last week, I discussed a monograph published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs entitled Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Use of Integrative Therapies as Supportive Care in Patients Treated for Breast Cancer. As you might remember, I was completely unimpressed. However, those guidelines were not the only thing in that particular JNCI […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Humor Medicine Naturopathy Popular culture Quackery Television

America’s quack Dr. Oz asks people to ask him questions on Twitter. Hilariously, the results aren’t quite what he expected.

Getting old sucks. I had a relatively long and busy day in the operating room yesterday, the kind of day that not so long ago I’d handle with no problem. This time around, though, it wiped me out, to the point where not long after dinner I crashed. Hard. Then I woke up around midnight […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Ebola, "right-to-try," and placebo legislation

One of the biggest medical conspiracy theories for a long time has been that there exist out there all sorts of fantastic cures for cancer and other deadly diseases but you can’t have them because (1) “they” don’t want you to know about them (as I like to call it, the Kevin Trudeau approach) and/or […]