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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Autism’s False Prophets: Finally, science pushes back against antivaccine lunacy

NOTE: This review of Dr. Offit’s book Autism’s False Prophets originally appeared over at The ScienceBlogs Book Club. However, now that the book club for this particular book has concluded, I am free to repost it here for those who may not have seen it and to archive it as one of my own posts. […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Hypnosis and hot flashes: When will they ever learn?

For women undergoing menopause, hot flashes are a real problem. In my specialty, as I’ve pointed out before, women undergoing treatment for breast cancer are often forced into premature menopause by the treatments to which we subject them. It can be chemotherapy, although far more often it’s the estrogen-blocking drugs that we use to treat […]

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Clinical trials Medicine

Publication bias in clinical trials used for FDA approval

If there is one difference that defines scientific medicine compared to “alternative medicine” it is the application of the scientific method to health claims. Science and the scientific method require transparency: transparency in methodology, transparency in results, transparency in data analysis. Because one of the most important aspects of science is the testing of new […]

Categories
Humor Pareidolia Religion Skepticism/critical thinking

Does this mean Sarah Palin is Jesus?

We’ve had Jesus, Mary, and a variety of others make their holy presence known on blessed pieces of toast. Now it looks as though we have a new sacred image: That’s right, Sarah Palin has proven her most sacred presence by appearing on a piece of toast! What more evidence do you need that her […]

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Surgery

Cancer research: Playing it safe versus taking risks

If there’s one thing that cancer researchers, indeed most biomedical researchers in the U.S., know today it’s that the research funding climate sucks right now. Indeed, after the completion of the near-doubling of the NIH budget in 2003, during which time it was flying high, the NIH budget in essence crash landed–hard. Paylines, which had […]