complementary and alternative medicine
oracknows | July 25, 2011Sadly, this isn't too far from the truth when it comes to some of these anti-vaccine doctors:
Actually, it's too generous. My only criticism of this video is that the mother with the child with suspected pertussis wasted more time with this idiot than was wise.
oracknows | July 22, 2011Et tu, Consumer Reports?
Since I was a teenager, I've intermittently read Consumer Reports, relying on it for guidance in all manner of purchase decisions. CR has been known for rigorous testing of all manner of consumer products and the rating of various services, arriving at its rankings through a systematic testing method that, while not necessarily bulletproof, has been far more organized and consistent than most other ranking systems. True, I haven't always agreed with CR's rankings of products and services about which I know a lot, but at the very least CR has often made me think about…
oracknows | July 17, 2011Note: I just got back from TAM; so if you happened to see a different version of this post somewhere else, now you know why.
Last week while I was at TAM, a study appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). It is another beautiful example of how proponents of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are able to spin even hugely negative results into something that supports CAM. Because I was at TAM, I didn't actually notice the article at first, but notice it I did eventually. Upon seeing it, my first question was: What on earth are the editors of NEJM smoking. Oddly enough,…
oracknows | July 15, 2011Like P.Z., I've been busy, busy, busy. TAM is a whirlwind of activity. Yesterday morning, I did my talk for the Science-Based Medicine workshop. Turnout was damned near standing room only, which makes me ask: Why would so many people be interested in hearing five somewhat geeky doctors pontificate about recurring themes in alternative medicine? Or me pontificating about "toxins"? Ah, well, there's no accounting for taste.
One hugely gratifying thing that's happened already is that one of you, my readers, provided me with a needed bit of accessorizing for my badge. I had no idea such things…
oracknows | July 12, 2011I'm on my way to The Amaz!ng Meeting today; so I'm not sure I have time for the usual bit of Orac-ian logorrheic blogging that I somehow manage to churn out almost every day. In fact, I had thought of just running another rerun so that I don't have to worry about it. But worry I did, at least a little bit, particularly after I saw something that really worried me a bit, and I'm not kidding.
Remember Kent Heckenlively? He's a regular blogger at the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism whom I've taken to task from time to time for subjecting of his autistic daughter to what I consider to be…
oracknows | July 11, 2011There's a website out there that calls itself Opposing Views. I haven't visited it in a while, but its very reason for existence and philosophy seems to be built on the "tell both sides" fallacy that so irritates me. In other words, Opposing Views appears to be built from the ground up to provide "balance" in all things. Sometimes, as in areas of politics, balance is not a bad thing. When it comes to science, not so much. The reason is that the "balance" in science shown by Opposing views is the sort that thinks there are two equally valid views in manufactroversies like the "debate" over…
oracknows | July 8, 2011One of the recurrent themes of this blog is to point out, analyze, and discuss the creeping infiltration of pseudoscience into medicine. In particular, it irks me that so many physicians, who really should know better, so easily fall for the siren song of quackery for whatever reason, be it a misguided desire to be nonjudgmental, to give the patients what they want, or through an inadequate understanding and appreciation of the scientific method. Indeed, there are whole specialties dedicated to "integrating" woo with science-based medicine to the detriment of science-based medicine.
Still,…
oracknows | July 7, 2011I just saw something I don't see every day. Or every week. Or every month. Or even every year.
I frequently complain about supplements on this blog. Well, not supplements per se but rather the double standard we have in this country when it comes to supplements. Basically, supplements are about as close to unregulated as you can imagine, thanks to a law known as the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or the DSHEA. Indeed, just last week, I wrote a post about a legislator whom I like to refer to as the lapdog of the supplement industry, namely Republican Senator Orrin Hatch…
oracknows | July 6, 2011What did the poor Haitians ever do to deserve this?
Think about it. A year and a half ago, they suffered through an enormous earthquake that will take them decades, maybe even a lifetime, to recover from fully; that is, if they ever do recover from it fully. Since then, they've received massive amounts of international aid, which is good. What's not so good is that, along with that aid have come a bunch of quacks. I first noticed the incursion of the quackiest of quacks, namely homeopaths, into Haiti only a couple of weeks after the quake. This group of homeopaths was patterned after the…
oracknows | July 4, 2011I saw this story on Friday and almost couldn't wait the weekend to blog about it. However, since the conference that was brought to my attention isn't until November, I ultimately decided that it would keep. At least until now.
This story is about Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health. Unlike some bloggers, personally, as a physician and scientist I don't much care about what religion Dr. Collins ascribes to. Unlike some writers such as Sam Harris, most definitely do not consider his strong Christian faith a disqualification for holding the position that he now…
oracknows | July 4, 2011Happy Independence Day, everyone!
Believe it or not, your normally blogorrheic host is taking this holiday off. For one thing, I have to work on my talk for the Science-Based Medicine workshop at The Amaz!ng Meeting 9 next week. For another thing, I have a fair amount of work for my actual job to do before tomorrow morning. So in the meantime I'll do what I like to call a "lazy blogger trick," namely to post an open thread. I'll also refer you to an excellent post by Mark Crislip about the difference between clinical thinking and critical thinking. It's such a good point that I might have to…
oracknows | July 1, 2011I know I've said it many, many times before, but it's something that, in my opinion at least, can't be repeated too often. Homeopathy is ridiculous. Arguably, it's the most ridiculous of "alternative" therapies ever conceived. And that's saying a lot. After all, among "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or "integrative medicine" (IM), we have therapies in which people claim that they can tap into some sort of "universal source" and channel it into you for healing effect (reiki, a.k.a. faith healing based on Eastern mysticism instead of Christian beliefs); they can change the flow…
oracknows | June 29, 2011Well, I'm back.
Grant frenzy is over (for now), and I have a couple of weeks before the next cycle begins again. Well, actually, it's more than that. The next big NIH grant deadlines are in October and November, but the Susan G. Komen Foundation grant notices just showed up in my e-mail the other day, and the deadlines for its preapplications are in early to mid-August. The fun never ends, and if the Army approves my preapplication for its Idea Award grant application I'll have a full application to write in August too. It's times like these when I ask myself why it is exactly that I do this…
oracknows | June 28, 2011It's grant crunch time, as the submission deadline for revised R01s is July 5. However, in a classic example of how electronic filing has actually made things more difficult, the grant has to be done and at the university grant office a week before the deadline if it is to be uploaded in time. So, my beloved Orac-philes, I'm afraid it's reruns again today, but, benevolent blogger that I am, I'll again post two about the same topic. Since I recently reran a really old post that started it all, I thought I'd follow up with the two additional posts about the same topic. This is the third one and…
oracknows | June 27, 2011It's grant crunch time, as the submission deadline for revised R01s is July 5. However, in a classic example of how electronic filing has actually made things more difficult, the grant has to be done and at the university grant office a week before the deadline if it is to be uploaded in time. So, my beloved Orac-philes, I'm afraid it's reruns again today, but, benevolent blogger that I am, I'll again post two about the same topic. Since I recently reran a really old post that started it all, I thought I'd follow up with the two additional posts about the same topic. This one is from 2006,…
oracknows | June 27, 2011It's grant crunch time, as the submission deadline for revised R01s is July 5. However, in a classic example of how electronic filing has actually made things more difficult, the grant has to be done and at the university grant office a week before the deadline if it is to be uploaded in time. So, my beloved Orac-philes, I'm afraid it's reruns today, but, benevolent blogger that I am, I'll post two, one older, one more recent, but both about the same topic. Earlier today, I posted a rerun from 2007. This one's a bit newer, from 2010. Even so, if you haven't been reading at least a year it's…
oracknows | June 26, 2011It's grant crunch time, as the submission deadline for revised R01s is July 5. However, in a classic example of how electronic filing has actually made things more difficult, the grant has to be done and at the university grant office a week before the deadline if it is to be uploaded in time. So, my beloved Orac-philes, I'm afraid it's reruns today, but, benevolent blogger that I am, I'll post two, one older, one more recent, but both about the same topic. This one's from 2007, which means that if you haven't been reading at least four years it's new to you.
A common refrain among…
oracknows | June 24, 2011It had to be done.
With all the quackery and pseudoscience promoted by TV doctors like Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, and "The Doctors," sooner or later someone had to choose a manner other than blogging to call them out. ZDoggMD has done just that, particularly dissing Dr. Oz. Why? Why not. Because:
Why dis Dr. Oz, indeed?
Let's enumerate:
He's taller, smarter, better looking, and infinitely more successful than me. He must therefore be stopped.
He may have started out with good intentions, but his current incarnation foists hype, pseudoscience, and unproven "alternative" treatments upon millions of…
oracknows | June 22, 2011You know, it all makes a lot more sense now.
Actually, I can't believe I didn't see it before. Here I was, all these years, and somehow the thought never crossed my mind, even though all the signs were right there. And then, yesterday, Tufted Titmouse showed me the light. She showed me the light about über-quack, a.k.a. The Health Ranger, the man who has provided me endless entertainment and exasperation at the same time with his reality-challenged (actually, reality-lacking) rants about medicine, vaccines, and science, peppered with bad rap videos and the occasional 9/11 "Truth" rant thrown…
oracknows | June 22, 2011Dietary supplements are minimally regulated in the U.S. Indeed, I'm continually amazed at how much supplement manufacturers can get away with and for how long. For example, one of the most recent atrocities against science occurred when Boyd Haley, disgraced chemistry professor at the University of Kentucky and prominent member of the mercury militia wing of the anti-vaccine movement, tried to sell an industrial chelator as a dietary supplement to treat autistic children. True, that was too much even for the underfunded, undermanned FDA to ignore, but it was amazing how long he got away with…