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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The death of Jade Erick: Why state licensure doesn’t protect patients from naturopathic quackery

Naturopaths claim that licensing their profession will ensure a high standard of care and protect patients. The case of Jade Erick, who died as a result of intravenous curcumin administered by a naturopath puts the lie to that claim. We now know that the naturopath who killed Erick has pending complaints that the Naturopathic Medicine Committee has done little to act on, revealing its ineffectiveness.

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The death of Ezekiel Stephan: Quackery and antivaccine views go hand in hand

About a month and a half ago, I became aware of the case of Ezekiel Stephan, a 19-month-old Canadian toddler living in Alberta who in 2012 developed bacterial meningitis. Unfortunately for Ezekiel, his parents, David and Collet Stephan, were believers in alternative medicine. They didn’t take Ezekiel to a real doctor. Instead, they relied on […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Naturopathy and “bioresonance”

It’s been a long and entertaining week. Well, at least part of the week was entertaining. After all, it was hard not to be mightily amused at what happened when Dr. Mehmet Oz, known to the world as America’s Doctor but to skeptics as America’s Quack, asked his Twitter followers to ask him anything under […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Criticism of pseudoscience and quackery is not "hate speech"

I sense a new disturbance in the antivaccine force. I hadn’t planned on blogging about the antivaccine movement again, but I felt that I needed to do a follow up to yesterday’s (hopefully) amusing little takedown of the antivaccine stylings of new member of that group personification of the Dunning-Kruger effect and arrogance of ignorance, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Politics Quackery

Colorado, naturopathy, and “health freedom”: Devolving into a quack wonderland?

It’s just one more cut on the road to the proverbial death by a thousand cuts. I’m referring, unfortunately, to last week’s development in the state of Colorado. Specifically, I’m referring to the Colorado legislature’s truly boneheaded decision to license naturopaths, thus giving the imprimatur of the state to quackery and, in essence, legalizing a […]