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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Our patients don’t practice evidence-based medicine? That doesn’t justify doctors embracing quackery!

One of the most annoying phenomena when it comes to “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), which its advocates are more and more insistent on calling “integrative medicine” is how little the average doctor cares that pseudoscience is infiltrating medicine. The reason, of course, is that CAM advocates don’t like the “alternative” part of the term […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Another one bites the dust to quackademic medicine

One of the most depressing things I regularly write about is, of course, the antivaccine movement. However, nearly as depressing to me is to watch the steady march of what I view as medical pseudoscience or even outright quackery into what should be bastions of science-based medicine, namely academic medical centers. As I’ve discussed many […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Science

R.I.P., McKenzie Lowe. Stanislaw Burzynski failed you.

R.I.P., McKenzie Lowe. Unfortunately, Stanislaw Burzynski was no more able to save you than anyone else, his claims of great success treating pediatric brain tumors notwithstanding: HUDSON — Thirteen-year-old Hudson resident McKenzie Lowe died Friday evening after a 2-year-battle against an aggressive and inoperable brain stem tumor. McKenzie died at 10:27 p.m. in her own […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Gluten-free skin and beauty products? More like thought-free…

A couple of Sundays ago (Easter, to be precise), my wife and I were sitting around yesterday reading the Sunday papers and perusing the Internet (as is frequently our wont on Sunday mornings), when I heard a contemptuous harrumph coming from her direction. She then pointed me to an article in our local newspaper entitled […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery

A rather clueless defense of CAM from across the pond

Acupuncture is quackery. This cannot be repeated often enough, and, in fact, over the last several months I’ve developed a tendency to start all my posts on acupuncture by making sure to remind everyone that it is quackery. The reasons are many-fold. For one thing, the concepts behind acupuncture are based on the claim that […]