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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Humor Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: It’s all in the shoes, or is it?

One of the favorite failings in logic and science among the woo-friendly crowd is the ever-famous one of confusing correlation with causation, also known as non causa pro causa, which means “non-cause for the cause.” Examples of this are rampant, and include the antivaccinationists who confuse correlation with vaccination and the age at which autism […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The writer of the U.S. News & World Report study on the infiltration of CAM into academia argues from ignorance

I’m a little late on this, but Avery Comarow, the reporter who wrote the big story three weeks ago in U.S. News & World Report about the infiltration of woo into academic medicine, has responded to criticisms of his column in his blog. His response, I’m afraid, is underwhelming. First, he starts out with the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Television

Irresponsible anti-vaccination idiocy about autism to air on ABC’s “Eli Stone”

It’s times like these that I wish the Hollywood writers’ strike had really and truly shut down production of new dramas completely. A new series on ABC set to premiere on January 31 looks as though it’s going to dish up a heapin’ helpin’ of the vilest antivaccination lies and propaganda that will potentially endanger […]

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Cancer Medicine

An opposite effect of chemotherapy?

Let’s face it. These days, research papers in the peer-reviewed biomedical scientific literature are becoming more and more complex and difficult to understand. For many journals, it seems, if you don’t have at least seven meaty, dense, multipanel figures (preferably some of which with flashy color confocal microscopy), you don’t have a prayer of getting […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The infiltration of woo into mainstream academic medicine: The media notices

Along with Dr. R.W. and few others, I’ve made a bit of a name for myself in the medical blogosphere by bemoaning the infiltration of non-science- and non-evidence-based medicine into academia. It’s not a particularly popular viewpoint. The prevailing attitude seems to be: Why be so negative? It’s all good. Moreover, with a credulous media […]