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Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Humor Medicine Quackery Television

Stephen Colbert on the Zicam fiasco

Last week, I wrote about the FDA’s warning about the zinc-containing “homeopathic” cold remedy known as Zicam. Basically, Zicam was approved without testing to show it to be both safe and efficacious because it slipped in using an old 1938 law that allows homeopathic remedies to bypass the usual process for FDA approval. Too bad […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Religion Science

Good news for Daniel Hauser!

I’ve been writing a lot about the case of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old boy with Hodgkin’s lymphoma who underwent one course of chemotherapy and then decided he wanted to pursue “alternative therapy” based on fear of chemotherapy and the faux Native American religion that his mother had taken up with. Ultimately, after a judge ordered […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

An astoundingly inaccurate headline about the Daniel Hauser case

It’s a lovely, sunny day here, so I’ll be brief. I’ve written several posts about the case of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old who refused chemotherapy and is now on the run from the law with his mother to avoid having to comply with a judge’s order that he receive effective, science-based treatment. One strange aspect […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Chemotherapy refusenik Daniel Hauser: On the way to Mexico with his mother?

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been blogging regularly about the case of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old boy with stage 2B Hodgkin’s lymphoma who, after one course of chemotherapy in January, refused to undergo any more, citing a faux religion run by a woo-meister naturopath and Native American wannabe called “Chief” Cloudpiler. In reality, […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Chemotherapy versus death from cancer

I know I’ve been writing a lot about the Daniel Hauser case, and forgive me if I may be beating a dead horse, but cases like these reprsent supreme “teachable” moments that don’t come along that often. The antivaccine movement, for instance, will be with us always (or at least, I fear, as long as […]