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Bad science Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Traditional Chinese medicine is science, ma-an! National Geographic promotes quackery

There’s a whole genre of quack apologia for traditional Chinese medicine that I like to call “traditional Chinese medicine is science, ma-an!” Basically, it tries to convince you that the prescientific, mystical, vitalistic mass of nonsense that is traditional Chinese medicine is “ancient knowledge” that was far ahead of its time and that its wisdom will be rediscovered to become the future of medicine. It’s utter nonsense, of course. Unfortunately, in its January issue, National Geographic fell for this myth—hard.

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Biology Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discoverer of Artemisinin: A triumph of natural product pharmacology, not traditional Chinese medicine

Earlier this week, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Youyou Tu for her discovery of the anti-malaria compound Artemisinin, as well as to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their discovery of a novel therapy for roundworm. Artemisinin, as some of you might know, is a compound derived from traditional […]