Categories
Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

On undisclosed conflicts of interest in medicine, science, and skepticism

I’ve written about conflicts of interest (COIs) a lot over the years. COIs are important in medicine and science because, as much as physicians and scientists like to think that they are immune to such things, we are as human as anyone else. We are just as prone to unconsciously (or consciously) being influenced by […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Laetrile: Everything old is new again, or at least Eric Merola hopes so

Remember our old buddy Eric Merola? He’s the guy who made two—count ’em—two crappy, conspiracy-laden, misinformation-ridden, astonishingly bad bits of “great man” propaganda disguised as documentaries about a Houston cancer doctor peddling unproven cancer treatments and charging his patients tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege of being under his care […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

The Alliance for Natural Health says that as though it were a bad thing…

The vast majority of what is known as “alternative medicine” is quackery. Let’s just get that right out front right from the very beginning of this post. That’s where I’m coming from, and where I’m coming from is a science- and evidence-based viewpoint. To quote a cliche that is true and modified to my own […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Leaving the cult of antivaccinationism and alt-med

The other day, I got to thinking about cults. The reason is that it’s been clear to me for some time that the antivaccine movement is a quack cult. In fact, a lot of quack groups are very cultish, the example that reminded me of this having been an excellent report published by a young […]

Categories
Biology Medicine Politics Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

How cute. Orac has been targeted by his first Change.org petition.

I had originally planned on writing about a different topic today, but, as is so often the case in blogging, something came up that caught my attention, much as the errant thought of a squirrel distracts Dug the Dog. Well, actually, I had to go to an evening meeting for work last night and by […]