Categories
Biology Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Science

The Chicago Tribune, “chronic Lyme disease,” and demands for false balance

During the six years of its existence, one frequent complaint I’ve had on this blog, it’s been about how the press covers various health issues. In particular, it’s depressing to see how often dubious and even outright false health claims, such as the claim that vaccines cause autism, that cell phones or powerlines cause cancer, […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The revenge of the return of the resurrection of the “autism as mitochondrial disorder” notion

If you need some woo, and you need it fast, who ya gonna call? HuffPo! Yes, as I’ve pointed out since its very inception, if there’s one thing The Huffington Post is good at doing, it’s butchering medical science and serving up regular heapin’ helpings of the purest woo. Be it the anti-vaccine pseudoscience that […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Beyond butt reflexology

Egads! You remember my fun little post about a Sokal-type hoax perpetrated by John C. McLachlan, when he completely fooled the “scientific review” committee of a complementary and alternative medicine conference with a hilarious Sokal-inspired hoax in which he created, in essence, butt reflexology. I thought it was an amusing and fairly original bit of […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Elizabeth Edwards and Kim Tinkham: A tale of two victims of breast cancer

Two women died of breast cancer yesterday. One was named Kim Tinkham. One was named Elizabeth Edwards. In some ways, these women were similar. True, one was older than the other, but both of them died far sooner than they should have, one at age 53, the other at age 61. Both engaged in activism […]

Categories
Cancer Medicine Quackery

A horrifying breast cancer “testimonial” for “holistic” treatment, finale

(NOTE: The videos of Robert O. Young’s interview with Kim Tinkham have been removed, as I predicted in this post that they would be. Fortunately, I downloaded copies before he managed to do that. Part 6 appears to be still there–for now.) (NOTE ADDED 12/7/2010: Kim Tinkham has died of what was almost certainly metastatic […]