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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

I fear for medical science under Donald Trump

It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump unexpectedly won the Presidential election despite losing the popular vote. Regular readers of my not-so-super-secret other blog know my opinion of this; so I won’t belabor it too much here. If you’re curious, I have written about Donald Trump’s antivaccine views here many times dating back to 2007, […]

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

Acupuncture: Getting the point

I’ve frequently written about what I like to refer to as “quackademic medicine,” defined as the infiltration of outright quackery into medical academia, particularly medical schools and academic medical centers. There’s no doubt that it’s a significant problem as hallowed institutions like Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center embrace nonsense, pseudoscience, and quackery in the name of […]

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

Quackademic medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

The Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) doesn’t like me much. I understand. I haven’t exactly been supportive of the group’s mission or activities. So it wasn’t surprising that SIO wrote letters trying to rebut a Perspectives article on “integrative oncology” that I published in Nature Reviews Cancer two years ago. What depressed me about that […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine History Medicine Naturopathy Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

In which I am compared to Donald Trump by a pro-quackademic medicine activist…again!

John Weeks has long been an activist for alternative medicine—excuse me, “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or, as it’s more commonly referred to these days, “integrative medicine.” Despite his having zero background in scientific research or the design and execution of experiments and clinical trials, for some bizarre reason in May he was appointed editor […]

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

JAMA: A willing accomplice to co-opting “nonpharmacologic” treatments for pain as being “alternative” or “complementary”

That I’m not a fan of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH, formerly known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, or NCCAM) should come as no surprise to anyone. Basically, from its very inception as the Office of Alternative Medicine in the early 1990s to its growth to large […]