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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

More hype than science: Ketogenic diets for cancer

If this looks a bit familiar to some of you, let’s just say that it’s grant crunch time again. This should be over after today. I hope. In the meantime, one of the difficult things about science-based medicine is determining what is and isn’t quackery. While it is quite obvious that modalities such as homeopathy, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Television

Another irony meter blown: Dr. Oz to testify in front of the Senate’s Consumer Protection panel about weight loss scams

I’ve never made it much of a secret that I don’t much like “America’s doctor,” Dr. Mehmet Oz. Just enter his name into the search box of this blog, and you’ll find quite a few posts in which I deconstruct some bit of quackery that Dr. Oz has promoted on his show, be it his […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Quackademic medicine infiltrates a major cancer conference

As if yesterday’s post weren’t depressing enough, last weekend I attended the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, which is part of the reason I didn’t produce much in the way of posts about a week ago. Last Sunday, while aimlessly wandering from session to session and checking […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Two and a half months later, quacks are still upset about Wikipedia

Quacks really hate Wikipedia. It’s understandable, really. Wikipedia has some fairly tight standards regulating its form and content. Quacks, thinking that because anybody can edit Wikipedia articles it must mean that they can edit the entries on their favorite bit of woo to their hearts’ content in order to make it look more scientifically supported […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics

The Daily Show: Hilarious segment about vaccines, not so hilariously wrong about the politics of vaccine denialism

Not surprisingly, being a guy who leans mildly left, I like The Daily Show. Jon Stewart and his writers are incredibly adept at skewering all manner of bovine excrement, be it political, scientific, or otherwise. In particular, the way Stewart and company skewered the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) for its promotion of […]