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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

What a fine belated blogiversary present: The return of the microfascists (and their micro brownshirts and microtruncheons)

Believe it or not, I missed my own blogiversary. It’s true. It was two days ago. For some reason, as the date approached I got the idea that it was the 13th, when in fact this blog was born on December 11, 2004 on a dreary Saturday afternoon when, after reading the TIME Magazine story […]

Categories
Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

A belated response to a challenge: Differentiating woo from non-woo in medicine

Over a week ago, fellow ScienceBlogger revere fired a bit of a pot shot across my bow regarding my bow regarding a study regarding, of all things, chicken soup. Initially, it was at a bad time, when I had other things to do, having just labored mightily to produce the latest Hitler Zombie extravaganza, after […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Homeopaths: Double-blind studies of homeopathic medicines are not ideally possible

Remind me to mark April 10 down on my calendar. I never realized it was such an important day, and, in any case, I wouldn’t want to miss it. Nor should the rest of the skeptical blogosphere. Why? It’s World Homeopathy Day, “celebrated” (or, if you’re a fan of evidence-based medicine, as I am, lamented) […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Quackery

Your Friday Dose of Woo: A little Thanksgiving bonus woo to help you melt away the pounds

For the holidays, I thought I’d include a brief little bit of woo that seems not quite extensive enough for a full treatment in Your Friday Dose of Woo but is nonetheless a tasty woo morsel for your edification that fits in with the usual Thanksgiving theme of overindulgence in various foods and the deleterious […]

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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

The ethics of clinical trials for terminally ill cancer patients

A few days ago, I posted a response to another physician who was not happy with me, no, not happy with me at all. What made him unhappy was the vociferousness with which I criticized the creeping infiltration of woo that is insinuating itself into medical school curricula and expressed dismay at the threat that […]