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Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Quackery

Is there such a thing as the “placebome”?

As results from randomized clinical trials show that alternative medicine is nothing more than placeboe, quacks like to argue that they are “harnessing the power of placebo” with their methods and that placebos have real healing effect. They’ve even gone so far as to make up a genomics-based concept: The placebome. But is there such a thing as the placebome?

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Antivaccine misinformation by Dr. W. Gifford-Jones in the Toronto Sun: Retracted (under pressure) but not forgotten

A week ago, The Toronto Sun published a syndicated column by a pseudonymous Canadian doctor, Dr. W. Gifford-Jones. The column was packed with antivaccine misinformation and pseudoscience. Apparently due to complaints, the article was taken down after an uproar, but is still available on the website of at least one other Canadian newspaper. How is it that a physician who writes such twaddle can be syndicated in over 70 newspapers?

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Friday Woo Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Yogi Jacket: How about some acupressure woo on a Friday?

How would you like a jacket with 7,000 miniature nontoxic plastic spikes lining it to stimulate those acupressure points? Have I got a jacket for you! Introducing…the Yogi Jacket! It’s woo-tactic!

Categories
Cancer Integrative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

The Integrative Oncology Scholars Program: Indoctrinating oncology professionals into pseudoscience

“Integrative oncology” involves “integrating” pseudoscience, mysticism, and quackery with science-based oncology and co-opting science-based lifestyle modalities as “alternative” in order to provide cover for the quackery. Unfortunately, my alma mater, funded by the National Cancer Institute, is running a course to indoctrinate 100 health care professionals in the ways of “integrative oncology.” The Trojan horse of “lifestyle interventions” and “nonpharmacologic treatments for pain” is at the gates. The quackery will leap out as soon as it’s in the fortress.

Categories
Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Functional medicine (FM) quackery dissected in the mainstream media

Functional medicine (FM) is “make it up as you go along” quackery that combines the “worst of both worlds,” namely the overtesting and overtreatment that can plague conventional medicine plus the quackery “integrated” into “integrative medicine.” It’s rare to see a mainstream outlet get it right about FM, but an Irish journalist pulls it off.