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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Stanislaw Burzynski in USA Today: Abuse of clinical trials and patients versus the ineffectiveness of the FDA and Texas Medical Board

I’ve made no secret of how much I despise Stanislaw Burzynski, the self-proclaimed cancer doctor and medical researcher who has been treating patients with an unproven, unapproved chemotherapeutic agent since 1977, seemingly slithering around, under, over, and past all attempts to investigate him and shut him down. Along the way, Burzynski has become a hero […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Deepak Chopra continues his woo-ful whining

Last week, everyone’s favorite woo-meister, the man whose woo is so strong that I even coined a term for it way back in the early mists of time (at least as far as this blog is concerned), was woo-fully whining about all those allegedly nasty skeptics on Wikipedia. Yes, Deepak Chopra was clutching his pearls […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics

Not-so-startling but nonetheless shocking revelations about the Burzynski Clinic

It’s been a while since I’ve written about Stanislaw Burzynski, the Houston cancer doctor who inexplicably has been permitted to continue to administer an unproven cancer treatment to children with deadly brain cancers for nearly 37 years now. Beginning in 1977, when he left Baylor College of Medicine and opened up the Burzynski Clinic, Burzynski […]

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

California children betrayed: Governor Jerry Brown and the neutering of a law designed to make vaccine exemptions harder to get

About a year ago, I became aware of the latest celebrity antivaccinationist with a penchant for saying truly stupid things and thus making an even bigger fool of himself than he usually does. I’m referring to Rob “makin’ copies” Schneider, who most recently has been making waves for narrating a misinformation-packed “viral” video about the […]

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

Sarah Hershberger and Zija MLM

Like many cases of children with cancer whose parents tried to deny them curative therapy in the past that I’ve written about, I’ve become intensely interested in the case of 10-year-old Amish girl with lymphoblastic lymphoma. Her name is Sarah Hershberg, and, in a rare instance of the state actually stepping in to protect the […]