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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Beth Israel joins the Academic Woo Aggregator!

I feel bad. I realize that I’ve been completely neglecting my Academic Woo Aggregator. You remember my Academic Woo Aggregator, don’t you? It was my attempt to compile a near-definitive list of academic medical centers that had “integrated” woo into their divisions or departments of “integrative medicine” (i.e., departments of academic-sounding quackery). Perusing it, I […]

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Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Using placebos outside of clinical trials

The other day, I thought it was about time that I did some of that cool and fancy ResearchBlogging.org stuff, you know, to keep this blog from being nothing more than a collection of not-so-Respectfully Insolent spleen venting at generalized stupidity. I realize that those are some of the funnest posts here and that people […]

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Medicine Politics Religion Science

Fundamentalist religion, misinformation, and the controversy over embryonic stem cell research in Michigan

Two years ago, there was a brouhaha in Missouri over a ballot proposal to allow state funding for embryonic stem cell research using discarded embryos from fertility clinics. The issue made national news, including some rather despicable rhetoric from Rush Limbaugh about Michael J. Fox, who made ads in support of the Missouri initiative, as […]

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Bioethics Medicine

The gentle art of persuasion

There are times in every physician’s career when he or she faces a patient with a serious, even life-threatening disease or condition, who, for whatever reason, does not want treatment. These can be incredibly frustrating and challenging patients. Most physicians try reason, cajoling, and persuasion. Believe it or not, physicians are still held in enough […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Breast Cancer Awareness Month abused by Mike Adams, 2008 edition

I’ll give Mike Adams one thing. He’s consistent. Consistently a crank, that is. Yes, that purveyor of woo, paranoia, and conspiracy theories, not to mention the creator of one of the five largest repositories of quackery support on the Internet, NaturalNews.com, the other three being Mercola.com, Whale.to, CureZone, and Gary Null, is up to his […]