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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery

A “homeopathic physician” in Arizona versus science

I’m a cancer surgeon and have been since I finished my fellowship nearly 13 years ago. That is, of course, one big reason that, after I found myself drifting towards becoming a skeptic, it didn’t take long for me to take an interest in “alternative medicine,” in particular alternative medicine for cancer. Perhaps that’s why […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

Six medical “myths” that aren’t

I usually don’t do requests, at least not very often. As selfish as it might sound, I do this blog mainly to amuse myself, which means that I choose whatever topics interest me and write about them. Believe it or not, I’d probably still be doing this even if my readership were 1/100 of what […]

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Cancer Medicine Quackery

Alternative medicine: The illusion of control

We humans like control. Actually, we need to feel as though we are in control. Perhaps that’s why, when we aren’t in control–can’t be in control, for whatever reason–we instinctively seek ways of being more in control, or at least of feeling as though we are in control. I’ve often wondered if providing the illusion […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The complexity of cancer, part II: Enter the quacks

A couple of days ago, I couldn’t resist discussing a recent article in the New York Times about recent discoveries in cancer research. I considered the article to be a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. While the article did a pretty good job of describing recent discoveries about how noncoding RNA, […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

R.I.P. David Servan-Schreiber

One of the very first themes I started hammering on in this blog, dating back to its very inception, is the analysis of alternative medicine cancer testimonials. One reason was (and is) that I take care of cancer patients and do research into developing new treatments for a living. Another reason is that, to the […]