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Clinical trials Medicine Surgery

The problem of funding in surgical research

I hate it when I fall behind in my journal reading. Of course, it happens all the time, as you might expect, with my time sandwiched between running my lab, writing grants, seeing patients, and operating. Sometimes, though, I get a chance to try to catch up a bit. Such was the case the other […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Relying on prayer instead of medicine, part II

About a month ago, I wrote about an unbelievably sad story of a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin who died of untreated diabetic ketoacidosis because she had been unfortunate enough to have been born into a family in which the parents believed in prayer rather than medicine. I say “unbelievably” because I find it truly difficult […]

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

Kathleen Seidel is not alone, as attorney Clifford Shoemaker continues his fishing expedition

A couple of weeks ago, I commented about a frivolous, SLAPP-style subpoena directed at one of the most thorough, rational bloggers about autism out there, Kathleen Seidel by Clifford Shoemaker, the attorney for Rev. Lisa Sykes and her husband Seth Sikes, both of whom who are suing Bayer for alleged “vaccine damage” as a cause […]

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

Your Friday Dose of Woo: It’s not just silver, it’s super-duper holy silver!

The woo is good again. Regular readers may have caught an undercurrent of whining in the last few installments of my little Friday feature? Whining about what? A bit of burnout. In fact, looking back at my last few installments, I now wonder whether I was starting to show signs of burnout. There I was, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Relying on prayer instead of medicine

This happened last week when I was feeling under the weather, and somehow I never got around to it. Fortunately, however, I’ve learned that there may indeed by justice in the case of Madeline Neuman, the 11-year-old child whose parents let her die of diabetic ketoacidosis. This story was widely reported thusly: “We just believe […]