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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

The scam of “detox”: Ritual purification by another name

“You need to detox.” How many times have you heard or read this? Maybe a friend of yours suggested it for the New Year. Maybe you saw it on a website, in a magazine, or as part of an ad. I like to say sometimes, “Toujours les toxines,” because in many branches of alternative medicine […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Contrary to impressions (and Donald Trump’s antivaccine views) most Americans support vaccine mandates

When it comes to vaccines, sometimes skeptics think that all is lost, that the antivaccine movement has won. A new Pew Research survey suggests reasons for hope.

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Is there a reproducibility “crisis” in biomedical research? (2017 edition)

About a week ago, I happened upon a number of stories about a study and project that demonstrates a key difference between science and pseudoscience. They had titles like, “Rigorous replication effort succeeds for just two of five cancer papers” (Science), “Cancer reproducibility project releases first results: An open-science effort to replicate dozens of cancer-biology […]

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Medicine Politics Skepticism/critical thinking

Next up on the Trump crazy train: A man who thinks that a “Yelp for drugs” will do a better job than the FDA

One of the most important, if not the most important, officials in the federal government responsible for applying science-based medicine to the regulation of medicine is the FDA Commissioner. As you might imagine, particularly after his having met with antivaccinationists like Andrew Wakefield and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., I am concerned, and I think I […]

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Biology Cancer Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

No, the PSA test probably didn’t save Ben Stiller’s life

A frequent topic of discussion on this blog is the concept of overdiagnosis. It’s a topic I’ve been writing about regularly since around 2007 or so and is defined as the detection in an asymptomatic person of disease that, if left alone, would never progress to endanger that person’s life or well-being within his or […]