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Bioethics Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Abraham’s law: Bad medicine has made bad law

There hasn’t been much news in the last two or three months about Abraham Cherrix, the 16-year-old with Hodgkin’s lymphoma who rejected conventional chemotherapy, first in favor of the quackery known as Hoxsey therapy and then for the ministrations of a radiation oncologist in Mississippi named Dr. Arnold Smith, who combines non-woo (low dose radiation […]

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Personal Politics

How bad can it get in my hometown?

Having been born in Detroit and raised both in the city and one of its suburbs, news like this distresses me: DETROIT (Reuters) – With bidding stalled on some of the least desirable residences in Detroit’s collapsing housing market, even the fast-talking auctioneer was feeling the stress. “Folks, the ground underneath the house goes with […]

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Cancer Medicine Politics

Elizabeth Edwards and bone metastases from breast cancer

As odd as it seems, my timing in posting about removing chemotherapy ports yesterday was eerily coincidental. I’ve alluded to this before, but I’m most definitely not a big fan of John Edwards and would never vote for him for President. That being said, I can’t help but feel for him and, even more so, […]

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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Dichloroacetate (DCA) and cancer: Magical thinking versus Tumor Biology 101

Late yesterday afternoon, I was lazily checking my referral logs to see who might be linking to Respectful Insolence™, as most bloggers like to do from time to time (and any blogger who claims otherwise is probably feeding you a line), when I noticed a fairly large number of visits coming from one location, namely […]

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Holocaust Politics

Maybe there’s hope for common sense about free speech in Europe after all

Back in October, I wrote about an appalling case in Germany, in which a German anti-Nazi activist named Juergen Kamm was fined €3,600 for selling left-wing garb adorned with modified Swastikas designed to mock neo-Nazis because he ran afoul of a law in Germany that forbids the use of Nazi symbols, regardless of context. It […]