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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

Destroying the FDA to save it? No, more like just destroying it.

Yesterday, I noted the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, a Hobson’s choice of a bill for those of us who support increased biomedical research funding that basically said: You can have an increase in the NIH budget. You can have the Cancer Moonshot. You can have President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative and his […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

I fear for medical science under Donald Trump

It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump unexpectedly won the Presidential election despite losing the popular vote. Regular readers of my not-so-super-secret other blog know my opinion of this; so I won’t belabor it too much here. If you’re curious, I have written about Donald Trump’s antivaccine views here many times dating back to 2007, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Politics Quackery

A rare win for science: The FTC issues its enforcement policy on homeopathic remedies

Whenever I write about homeopathy, I almost always refer to it at least once as “The One Quackery To Rule Them All.” It’s a phrase I’ve used to describe homeopathy for several years now, and for good reason. Of all the quackery out there, with the possible exception of reiki, homeopathy is the one that […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The Texas Medical Board vs. Stanislaw Burzynski, round ∞: Will Burzynski slither away yet again?

It’s been a while since I wrote about Stanislaw Burzynski, the Polish ex-pat physician who is not an oncologist but treats cancer patients in his Houston clinic with a mixture of a compound he calls “antineoplastons” (ANPs) and “gene-targeted” therapy. The former are really a mixture of various chemicals he isolated from the blood and […]

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Medicine

“Right to try” goes federal, thus far unsuccessfully

It’s been nearly two weeks since a new “right to try” bill (AB 1668) passed the California legislature with overwhelming support and was sent to Governor Jerry Brown’s desk to be signed. Thus far, he has not signed it, which is good, but neither have I seen a story that he has vetoed it either. […]