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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Jess Ainscough, Belle Gibson, and “wellness warriors” vs. cancer

Recent articles in The Daily Mail and The Australian reminded me that it’s been over a month since the unfortunate demise of Jess Ainscough, a young Australian woman who was diagnosed with an epithelioid sarcoma of her left upper extremity in 2008. Before I get to the articles, a brief recap is in order. This […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy

An anonymous Canadian foundation grants $3 million to study naturopathic oncology

It’s no secret that I don’t have a high opinion of naturopathy. Just enter the word “naturopathy” into the search box of this blog, and you’ll quickly see what I mean. Indeed, when last I mentioned the topic a couple of weeks ago, I was discussing the revelations of Britt Marie Hermes, a former naturopath […]

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Cancer Clinical trials History Medicine Science

Ancient cancer

As I sat on my couch last night, laptop sitting in front of me, I awaited the Ken Burns adaptation of Siddartha Mukherjee’s excellent book The Emperor of All Maladies into a three part television documentary to air on PBS. I’m not sure whether I’ll blog the show or not, but if I do I’ll […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

The quack view of preventing cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie, part 3

I happen to be in Houston right now attending the Society of Surgical Oncology annual meeting. Sadly, I’m only about 12 miles away from the lair of everybody’s favorite faux clinical researcher and purveyor of a cancer cure that isn’t, Stanislaw Burzynski. Such is life. In any case, this conference is all about cancer and […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Medical marijuana and the new herbalism, part 3: Cannabis does not cure breast cancer

It’s been a while since I discussed medical marijuana, even though it’s a topic I’ve been meaning to come back to since I first dubbed medical marijuana to be the equivalent of herbalism and discussed how the potential of cannabinoids to treat cancer has been, thus far, unimpressive, with relatively modest antitumor effects. The reason […]