Categories
Bioethics Clinical trials History Holocaust Medicine World War II

Revisiting the issue of ethics in human experimentation

Progress in science-based medicine depends upon human experimentation. Scientists can do the most fantastic translational research in the world, starting with elegant hypotheses, tested through in vitro and biochemical experiments, after which they are tested in animals. They can understand disease mechanisms to the individual amino acid level in a protein or nucleotide in a […]

Categories
Cancer Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

When skepticism about medicine devolves into nihilism

A couple of weeks ago, the ever-inimitably sarcastic master of pus himself, Mark Crislip, posted an excellent deconstruction of a very disappointing article that was published in the most recent issue of Skeptical Inquirer, the flagship publication of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). I say “disappointing,” because I was disappointed to see SI (Skeptical […]

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

Your Friday Dose of Woo on Saturday: Apparently the FDA doesn’t get the “VIBE”

Due to my activities at the Society of Surgical Oncology meeting in San Antonio, somehow I didn’t manage to crank out a bit of that Insolence, Respectful or Not-So-Respectful, that you all crave. So, given that this is Friday, I thought I’d to a “rerun” of a bit of classic woo. This one’s a little […]

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

Your Friday Dose of Woo: The Emperor of the Woo-niverse

Due to my activities at the Society of Surgical Oncology meeting in San Antonio, somehow I didn’t manage to crank out a bit of that Insolence, Respectful or Not-So-Respectful, that you all crave. So, given that this is Friday, I thought I’d to a “rerun” of a bit of classic woo. This one’s a little […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Entertainment/culture Medicine

Another pointless anti-vaccine “protest”

Why do these things always have to happen when I’m out of town? As you might be aware, the anti-vaccine movement is very, veyr unhappy with the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case of Bruesewitz vs. Wyeth. Basically, the Supreme Court upheld the primacy of the Vaccine Court in adjudicating vaccine injury claims and […]