Tag: Brian Berman

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Naturopathy Politics Quackery

Thanks to the U.S. Senate, the week of October 7 to 13, 2013 is now Quackery Week

Naturopathy is quackery. There, I said it. Actually, I’ve said it many times before, because it is. The problem with naturopathy, of course, is that it is so diffuse and encompasses so many different forms of quackery that it’s hard to categorize. Basically, it’s anything that can be portrayed as “natural,” be it traditional Chinese […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

More Tooth Fairy Science: Acupuncture does not improve in vitro fertilization success rates, no matter what acupuncturists say

Here we go again. Oh, well. These things come in waves, and sometimes I have theme weeks. Right now, this week appears to be developing into a week of quackademic medicine involving dubious acupuncture studies. Yesterday, it was acupuncture for lymphedema after breast cancer surgery, a study coming right about what is rapidly becoming the […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

A founding father of quackademic medicine speaks

It’s been a while since I’ve written about Brian Berman. We first met him when he somehow managed to insinuate a “case report” of chronic low back pain into The New England Journal of Medicine in which he recommended acupuncture for this patient. Dr. Berman also happens to be a founder of quackademic medicine on […]