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Medicine Politics Science

A Presidency ends. A Presidency begins.

I never thought I’d finally see the day, but George W. Bush is no longer President of the United States, and Barack Obama is. I have to say, I’ve paid attention to Presidential Inaugurations since 1981, and I can’t recall one greeted with as much excitement, hope, and expectation. All around my university, in my […]

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Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Jeremy Sherr, homeopathy for AIDS in Africa, and the most fortunate failure of memory holes in the age of Internet

I almost feel sorry for homeopathy Jeremy Sherr. Almost. You see, he is busily learning a lesson that HIV/AIDS denialist Celia Farber learned a couple of weeks ago, namely that, unlike the fictional nation of Oceania in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, memory holes do not work very well in the Internet age. I’ll backtrack a […]

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Humor Pareidolia Skepticism/critical thinking

Best pareidolia ever?

Let’s see. We’ve seen the Virgin Mary on trees, under a freeway overpass in Chicago, a window in Perth Amboy, NJ, and even in the brain. We’ve seen Jesus himself show up on toast, on a piece of sheet metal, on a potato chip, on a pierogi, on a ceiling tile, and even on a […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Let President-Elect Obama know that he should defund NCCAM!

P.Z. Myers turned me on to a phenomenal proposal at Change.gov, the website of President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition team: Defund the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Here’s a way to increase the available funding to NIH without increasing the NIH budget: halt funding to NCCAM, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

If it’s “natural,” it must be better. It just has to be.

My dear readers, I beg your indulgence for the moment. I had been planning on doing something a bit more serious than what I’ve been up to lately. Believe it or not, NaturalNews.com pointed me to a study that’s actually pretty interesting. It even challenges to some extend existing results. Of course, Mike Adams’ minion’s […]