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Clinical trials Medicine Surgery

Surgical checklists as a strategy to reduce morbidity and mortality

About a year ago, I discussed an article by Dr. Atul Gawande describing a quality improvement initiative that appeared to have been stalled by the Office for Human Research Protections and its apparent tendency to apply human subjects research protection rules to initiatives that are not exactly research using human subjects. The problem appeared to […]

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Humor Pareidolia Religion Skepticism/critical thinking

“John Smith” responds to Orac’s post on his Lava Lamp pareidolia

This was so good that I just couldn’t resist. Yesterday, I did a quick post about an amusing bit of pareidolia, in which the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus were seen in a Lava Lamp. Apparently, an Australian man going by the pseudonym of John Smith noticed the shape in the wax as he fired […]

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Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Jeremy Sherr, homeopathy for AIDS in Africa, and the most fortunate failure of memory holes in the age of Internet

I almost feel sorry for homeopathy Jeremy Sherr. Almost. You see, he is busily learning a lesson that HIV/AIDS denialist Celia Farber learned a couple of weeks ago, namely that, unlike the fictional nation of Oceania in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, memory holes do not work very well in the Internet age. I’ll backtrack a […]

Categories
Humor Pareidolia Skepticism/critical thinking

Best pareidolia ever?

Let’s see. We’ve seen the Virgin Mary on trees, under a freeway overpass in Chicago, a window in Perth Amboy, NJ, and even in the brain. We’ve seen Jesus himself show up on toast, on a piece of sheet metal, on a potato chip, on a pierogi, on a ceiling tile, and even on a […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Movies Politics Popular culture Quackery Television

Autism quackery invades my hometown

I hate to see this. I really do. I really hate it to see people who think they’re doing a good thing, who think they’re raising money for a worthy charity, totally clueless that what they are doing is supporting the rankest pseudoscience and quackery. Here’s an example from my hometown of Detroit. It’s a […]