complementary and alternative medicine
oracknows | February 1, 2008...courtesy of fellow ScienceBlogger Jake Young.
Two money quotes:
"First, what is CAM bringing to the table that science and medicine didn't have? Good feelings. Acquaintance with the ways ignorance. Newer, better superstitions. Frankly, you can keep them."
"Science complemented by non-science ceases to be science, and there are no alternatives to the truth."
I may have to steal that last one, perhaps with the addition of a flourish or two of my own. For example, I'd add that science "integrated" with nonscience runs a very high risk of ceasing to be science.
We need more medical students…
oracknows | February 1, 2008Water.
It's the essence of life. Our bodies are mostly made up of it, and we can't live without it for very long. Our cells both contain it and are bathed in it. The enzymatic reactions necessary for life require an aqueous solution to work. Don't think these facts have escaped the woo-meisters, either. Water woo is a a long time favorite of woo-meisters everywhere. Indeed, it began with the "water cure" favored by the ancient Greeks and Romans, who could be forgiven for coming up with it, given that they had very little idea of how human physiology actually worked and at the very least it…
oracknows | January 31, 2008Ack!
The new Skeptic's Circle is here! Yes, the 79th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has convened over at Podblack Blog, and it's another great collection of skeptical blogging. So why am I disturbed? I just realized that I've utterly failed in my organizer duties in that I totally forgot to submit one of my own posts to the Circle. The shame! Even worse, the Circle's just fine without me; if I hadn't pointed it out I doubt that anyone would have noticed that I hadn't submitted anything.
So why point it out?
Actually, in a way it's a very good thing. It just goes to show that the Skeptics'…
oracknows | January 31, 2008I used to be somewhat of a supporter of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). I really did. This was back when I was more naïve and idealistic. Indeed, when I first read Wally Sampson's article Why NCCAM should be defunded, I thought it a bit too strident and even rather close-minded. At the time, I thought that the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff was to apply the scientific method to the various "CAM" modalities and let the chips fall where they may.
Unfortunately, two developments have made me sour on NCCAM and develop an opinion more like Dr…
oracknows | January 30, 2008Three and a half months after Kevin Leitch announced that he was shutting down his most excellent blog, Left Brain/Right Brain, it appears that, thankfully, he's changed his mind. Appearing yesterday on the archives of his blog, Kev announced that his blog is open for business again.
Join me in welcoming Kev back to the blogosphere. Head on over and leave a message. It's good to see that he decided not to let bastards like John Best silence him permanently.
oracknows | January 30, 2008A few days ago, I was amused by a term coined by Dr. R.W. The term, "quackademic medicine," was meant to describe the unholy fusion of non-science- and non-evidence-based woo that has infiltrated academic medicine to a disturbing extent over the last decade or two. There was a lot of reaction, mainly positive, to the new term, and I even got an e-mail from a certain skeptical podcaster vowing to use the term every opportunity that he got. One reader, Jim Benton, made a comment that got me to thinking. Here's the comment:
My 'crusade of the year' this year (other than getting a Democratic…
oracknows | January 28, 2008Pity poor David Kirby.
Nearly three years ago now, he published his now-infamous Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, A Medical Mystery. Hooking up with the most vocal of the mercury militia, his book blamed mercury in vaccines as the major cause of autism. Unfortunately for Kirby, time has not been kind to him. Although he still manages to retain his rock star status among the antivaccination glitterati, each successive study failing to find a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) and autism put another nail in the coffin of Kirby's relevance, to the…
oracknows | January 27, 2008With all the woo infiltrating hospitals these days, as I've lamented about in constructing my Academic Woo Aggregator, it was only a matter of time until these ways of thinking started to infiltrate other lines of work.
Why not "alternative janitorial services" as well? After reading about it, I wonder how long before it spreads any further. How about "alternative" auto repair? Or even "alternative" plumbing? The possibilities are endless.
oracknows | January 26, 2008I'll give Don Imus credit for one thing. He's predictable and consistent. He never fails to deliver the stupid when it comes to vaccines and autism. True, his wife may take the stupid to hysterically malignant levels when she decides to rant about her belief in the undead myth that mercury in vaccines was a major cause of autism, but he's the calm and reliable voice of vaccine stupidity, spitting out the same antivaccination lies over and over again in that sleep-inducing mumbling drone that he calls a voice. He's only been back on the air for a month and a half now, and it's become…
oracknows | January 25, 2008
One of the favorite failings in logic and science among the woo-friendly crowd is the ever-famous one of confusing correlation with causation, also known as non causa pro causa, which means "non-cause for the cause." Examples of this are rampant, and include the antivaccinationists who confuse correlation with vaccination and the age at which autism is usually first recognized with vaccines causing autism, taking a homeopathic remedy shortly before having their symptoms resolve spontaneously and mistaking this for the efficacy of the homeopathic remedy, chelating children with autism and…
oracknows | January 24, 2008Word of the day: "Quackademic medicine." I love it.
Dr. R.W. explains.
I very well may have to steal that term. As they say about artists, good ones borrow but great ones steal. (Just living up to the arrogance of my namesake...)
oracknows | January 24, 2008...because then I could attend Dr. David Colquhoun's lecture at the University of Toronto tomorrow.
Dr. Colquhoun, for those not familiar with him, is the eminent pharmacologist with the name that is exceedingly difficult to remember how to spell who runs DC's Improbable Science, an excellent skeptical, scientific, and medical blog that routinely takes on dubious medical and scientific claims. A while back, his university (the University College of London) kicked his blog off its servers in response to complaints by disgruntled "alternative" therapists who did not like his science-based take…
oracknows | January 24, 2008My post from Monday finally goaded me to do it. Yes, it's time to update the Academic Woo Aggregator. I've been far too remiss in doing so, and at least a couple of new candidates have come to my attention as I continue to keep my eye out for more.
First, from the U.S. News & World Report article, I find a "worthy" candidate for inclusion, namely Children's Memorial Hospital, which is affiliated with Northwestern University. As evidence, I submit excerpts from its website:
Energy healing: Our bodies are always trying to move toward balance and health. Energy healing encourages the flow…
oracknows | January 23, 2008I'm a little late on this, but Avery Comarow, the reporter who wrote the big story three weeks ago in U.S. News & World Report about the infiltration of woo into academic medicine, has responded to criticisms of his column in his blog.
His response, I'm afraid, is underwhelming.
First, he starts out with the claim that he is an "evidence" guy:
A few words about that story and how it evolved. Regular readers (scratch "regular"--anybody who's read a single post) can tell I'm an evidence kind of guy. Claims without backup data give me the urge to turn the page, click on another link, get off…
oracknows | January 23, 2008It's times like these that I wish the Hollywood writers' strike had really and truly shut down production of new dramas completely. A new series on ABC set to premiere on January 31 looks as though it's going to dish up a heapin' helpin' of the vilest antivaccination lies and propaganda that will potentially endanger children's lives by stoking fears about the safety of vaccines:
LOS ANGELES -- A new legal drama making its debut this month on ABC is stepping into a subject that is the source of heated debate among some parents -- the relationship between autism and childhood vaccines -- and…
oracknows | January 22, 2008Three months ago, I wrote about vacuous legal threats issued by the Society of Homeopaths against one of the better skeptical bloggers, Le Canard Noir, who runs the excellent Quackometer Blog and created the infamous Quackometer, in order to intimidate him into silence. The attempt backfired spectacularly, as scores of bloggers reposted the article by Le Canard Noir that prompted the legal threats, in the face of which his ISP had caved.
Now it looks like it might be time to do it all again, this time with a different twit who has issued abusive threats against Le Canard Noir. This time…
oracknows | January 22, 2008...and ERV has the scoop, along with pictures.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about April Renée, the former President of The Autism Autoimmunity Project and a frequent speaker for Vaccine Injured Children, who was scheduled to speak in Oklahoma City on Saturday; so I'm not surprised at ERV's observation:
As for April Renée's presentation, I was shaking I was so angry. It was a hate speech against scientists that would make any Creationist proud. After ranting about how scientists and physicians get pleasure from killing children she said 'I dont mean to degrade any of the pediatricians in…
oracknows | January 21, 2008Along with Dr. R.W. and few others, I've made a bit of a name for myself in the medical blogosphere by bemoaning the infiltration of non-science- and non-evidence-based medicine into academia. It's not a particularly popular viewpoint. The prevailing attitude seems to be: Why be so negative? It's all good. Moreover, with a credulous media eager to publish stories of "healing" and "humanistic" medicine, those of us who remain skeptical of applying unproven and/or untested remedies in an academic setting, thus giving them the imprimatur of academic medicine and the respect associated with it,…
oracknows | January 19, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…
oracknows | January 18, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…