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Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

An unholy combination of methodolatry and quackery apologia—with jade eggs

Meet Dr. Jason Fung. Dr. Fung is unhappy with skeptics and thinks they’re hypocrites behaving like religious fanatics. Unfortunately for him, his arguments are a combination of the worst methodolatry of evidence-based medicine combined with rants against conventional medicine and a defense of quackery.

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Bad science Bioethics Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery

The cruel sham that is federal right-to-try has passed. Let patients beware!

“Right-to-try” laws are a cruel sham that purport to allow terminally ill patients access to promising experimental drugs. In reality, they strip away many protections and leave vulnerable patients on their own. After four years and a number of toothless state laws, a federal version of “right-to-try” has passed Congress and is poised to become law. Once President Trump signs the bill this week, this federal version of “right-to-try” will leave terminally ill patients on their own and will likely be the first step in returning the FDA to its pre-thalidomide state, in which it only required evidence of safety, not efficacy, to approve drugs.

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Surprise! Surprise! (Well, actually, no.) Acupuncture does not work for in vitro fertilization

Australian researchers have carried out another randomized clinical trial on acupuncture for in vitro fertilization. Unsurprisingly, it’s completely negative. Also unsurprisingly, acupuncturists are not happy and are furiously making excuses.

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Bad science Clinical trials Integrative medicine Medicine Quackery

PLOS ONE publishes a howler of a bad acupuncture network meta-analysis

Meta-analyses can sometimes suffer from the “GIGO problem” (garbage in, garbage out). The publication of a “crappy” acupuncture “network meta-analysis” for acupuncture and chronic constipation illustrates the GIGO problem on steroids a.nd reveals a problem with peer review at PLOS ONE, where it was published

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Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery

Only a homeopath has a belief system bizarre enough to defend a remedy based on spit from a rabid dog

Last week, naturopath and homeopath Anke Zimmermann made the news for using lyssinum, a homeopathic remedy based on saliva from a rabid dog, to treat a four year old boy with behavioral problems. This week, Zimmermann strikes back against her critics. Hilarity ensues.