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

Cassandra Callender, the teen who refused chemotherapy, has relapsed

I hate these stories, because they so seldom end well. Unfortunately, this one is more messy than even the usual messiness of the typical story of this type. The type of story I’m referring to, of course, is one that I’ve told from time to time ever since near the first year of this blog’s […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The death of Ezekiel Stephan: Quackery and antivaccine views go hand in hand

About a month and a half ago, I became aware of the case of Ezekiel Stephan, a 19-month-old Canadian toddler living in Alberta who in 2012 developed bacterial meningitis. Unfortunately for Ezekiel, his parents, David and Collet Stephan, were believers in alternative medicine. They didn’t take Ezekiel to a real doctor. Instead, they relied on […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Yet again, acupuncture does not work for menopausal hot flashes

Arguably, one of the most popular forms of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) being “integrated” with real medicine by those who label their specialty “integrative medicine” is acupuncture. It’s particularly popular in academic medical centers as a subject of what I like to refer to as “quackademic medicine“; that is, the study of pseudoscience […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Popular culture Quackery

After “Vaxxed,” here comes another antivaccine “documentary”

Now that I’ve dispensed with Mike Adams’ attacks (for now), It’s time to get back to business as usual. No way am I going to let Adams interfere with the business of this blog for more than one day to take note of it, even though he’s now gone basically batshit crazy. Unfortunately, no sooner […]

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Cancer Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Making it up as you go along: So-called “functional medicine” is pure quackery

I often describe “integrative medicine” as integrating quackery with medicine because that’s what this inadvertently appropriately named branch of medicine in essence does. The reason, as I’ve described time and time again, is to put that quackery on equal footing (or at least apparently equal footing) with science- and evidence-based medicine, a goal that is […]