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Medicine Quackery

The Cleveland Clinic publishes a study touting the benefits of the quackery known as “functional medicine”

The Cleveland Clinic has, unfortunately, embraced the quackery known as “functional medicine.” Now it’s publishing dubious studies touting it.

Categories
Cancer Medicine Naturopathy

Pediatric naturopathic oncology: A horrifying concept

“Naturopathic oncology” is a specialty made up by naturopaths in order to justify using their quackery to treat cancer patients. A new survey takes it a step further and looks at using naturopathy to treat children with cancer, including the use of homeopathy, reiki, and restrictive diets.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Science

Harlem Vaccine Forum: Is Al Sharpton antivaccine?

Rev. Al Sharpton is hosting the Harlem Vaccine Forum. Unfortunately, his “forum” looks like an antivaccine quackfest.

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery

NIH HEAL Initiative: $1 billion to study “integrative” nonpharmacologic treatments for pain

The NIH HEAL Initiative is designed to study “nonpharmacologic treatments for pain.” What it will really study will include heaping helpings of “integrative medicine” pseudoscience.

Categories
Biology Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Fabrizio Benedetti asks: “Does placebo research boost pseudoscience?”

Professor Fabrizio Benedetti is the most famous and almost certainly also the most influential researcher investigating the physiology of placebo effects. In a recent commentary, he asks whether placebo research is fueling quackery, as quacks co-opt its results. The answer to that question is certainly yes. A better question is: How do supporters of science counter the placebo narrative promoted by quacks, in which placebos represent the “power of the mind to heal the body”?