complementary and alternative medicine
oracknows | September 20, 2006Yesterday's post on Dawn Winkler, the antivaccination activist who is presently running for the Governor of Colorado on the Libertarian ticket, provoked this comment, which linked to an amusing e-mail exchange that Australian skeptic Peter Bowditch had with her regarding vaccines a couple of years ago. After reading that exchange, I now think that I was probably a bit more easy on Ms. Winkler than she deserved. Perhaps I gave her too much of the benefit of the doubt because of the death of her first child of SIDS. I realize more strongly now that personal tragedy does not immunize her from…
oracknows | September 19, 2006Unfortunately for them, folks in Colorado have a hard core anti-vaxer named Dawn Winkler running for governor on the Libertarian ticket. I'm hoping for their sakes that, as a third party candidate, that she has virtually no chance of winning. Check out some of her rhetoric posted on Whale.to seven years ago in response to an essay by Dr. J. Thomas Megerian of Children's Hospital in Boston. Even though it's seven years old, I present part of it because it is so astonishingly clueless and because, as you will see later, Winkler apparently hasn't learned a thing since then:
How on earth did we…
oracknows | September 18, 2006Ensconced at a conference center in North Carolina near Abel's and Bora's home turf since Saturday, I appear to have missed an update on the story of Starchild Abraham Cherrix. As you may recall, he is a 16 year old who fought for the right to pursue "alternative" therapy over evidence-based medicine to treat his relapsed Hodgkin's lymphoma. Last month he and his parents agreed to a compromise with the court in which he would be allowed to pursue his desired form of quackery (known as the Hoxsey therapy) in addition to other therapies in the clinic of a radiation oncologist named Dr. Arnold…
oracknows | September 15, 2006It's about time it was Friday. No, it's not because it will mean any less work for me; in fact, this weekend will probably mean more, as I have to go to a workshop that's more like boot camp. It's more because the subject matter of this blog had become such a major bummer, with the fifth anniversary of September 11, followed by a rumination about aging, followed by two posts about the dismal funding situation at the NIH. The only thing breaking up the gloom was getting a chance to point out a lovely deconstruction of an HIV "skeptics'" misguided attempt at claiming the mantle of skepticism,…
oracknows | September 14, 2006I never knew that puppies liked logic and critical thinking. I always thought that they liked running, playing, eating, sleeping, and being petted. But, according to Janet Stemwedel, there is at least one puppy who is a budding skeptic, and bad reasoning and gullibility make him sad. She explains in the introduction to the 43rd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle:
Welcome to the meeting of the 43rd Skeptics' Circle! Good logic and critical thinking never hurt anyone, but bad logic, gullibility, and uncritical acceptance of questionable claims causes distress to small, furry animals. I'm not…
oracknows | September 13, 2006With the latest edition of the Skeptics' Circle due to appear later today, I'd just like to point out that I've become aware of two new skeptical blogs:
Action Skeptics (I like its catchphrase, "Annoying stupid people, one woo at a time.")
The Antidote: Counterspin for Health Care and Health News
They're worth checking out, and I'll keep an eye on them to see how they develop. And while we're at it, I would be remiss if I didn't mention another skeptical blog belonging to someone who's become a frequent commenter here. That's right, I mean Amy Alkon, a.k.a. The Advice Goddess, who runs a…
oracknows | September 8, 2006As regular readers may have noticed, I was on vacation the last two Fridays in a row. To keep Your Friday Dose of Woo (YFDoW) going, I decided to resurrect a couple of posts from the old blog that would have made good installments of YFDoW installments, had YFDoW existed at the time when they were originally written. One thing I noticed upon coming back and approaching this first new YFDoW since getting back to work was that it seemed even harder than usual to settle on a specific topic this week. I looked back over some links that I had saved, but none of them fired me up enough to wade into…
oracknows | September 6, 2006While I'm back on the subject of autism, I thought I'd post this video that Kevin Leitch created while I was on vacation and posted to YouTube. Let's just say that it takes a rather dim view of autism "advocates," particularly the autism=mercury poisoning crowd.
I particularly love the picture of J. B. Handley that Kev found. It's also amusing to note that J. B. made an appearance in the comments of Kev's post, and he was not pleased. Also, if you're wondering what the whole "Illuminati" thing is about, Kev explains here.
Not to be outdone, Autism Diva produced her own contribution (below…
oracknows | September 1, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 31, 2006Boy, oh, boy, I had to control myself on this one. Yes, dear reader, while I was away this last week and a half, many were the times that I wanted to let loose about this. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) lack of Internet access at some times and other vacation activities at other times interceded. Now that I'm back home (although not back to full blogging, as I'm still on vacation until Labor Day), it's time to weigh in.
As you know, I've written extensively (some might say too extensively) about the Abraham Cherrix case, the case of a 16 year old boy who won…
oracknows | August 31, 2006Rapidly dwindling vacation or no vacation, I have to plug the Skeptic's Circle.
Some of you may have wondered where the host of this week's Skeptic's Circle has been. After all, a few of you commented that his blog hadn't been updated in three months, even with a notice for the Skeptics' Circle. Fear not! Our intrepid host had to overcome even more than you think (in his mind, that is). Let him tell the tale in this brief excerpt:
Welcome to the 42nd meeting of the skeptics circle. Many of you have wondered where I have been over the past months and what has exactly been going on down in the…
oracknows | August 29, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 25, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 25, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 23, 2006Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, as I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "cure"…
oracknows | August 23, 2006Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, as I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "cure"…
oracknows | August 23, 2006Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, because I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "…
oracknows | August 22, 2006Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, as I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "cure"…
oracknows | August 21, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 20, 2006Wallace Sampson tells us the real history of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Much of TCM, it turns out, isn't as "traditional" as it is sold as being.