palmd | April 22, 2009Just when you think the Huffington Post can't get any more inane and idiotic, just when you think your synapses might be starting to heal, they come out with another post that simply makes your ears bleed.
Sure, HuffPo regularly comes down on the side of superstition, for example in the vaccine manufactroversy; and sure, they sometimes veer into the lane of deceptive medical infomercials. But I sort of held out hope that they wouldn't resort to hosting potential fraud.
Fraud, you say? Well, not clearly. But, just as we in the Midwest know that when the sky turns that certain shade of…
palmd | April 22, 2009As anyone who has been following the naturopathy thread knows, this blog often covers controversial topics. To help elucidate the problems, there is often vigorous debate, which I rarely censor.
I bring this up because of this blogs recent HONcode certification. As I told you, HON is struggling with the format of blogs. They are rather ambivalent about such a "free for all" format. Hence this email:
Dear DrPal,
We have recently received a complaint concerning your site:
http://www.scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/
It is regarding the post about the Naturopath Challenge.
We make it…
palmd | April 21, 2009Overheard from the 210th annual emergency meeting of the Society for Evidence-Free Healing.
Chair: The meeting will come to order.
Some Dude: Seconded.
Chair: Um, I'm the Chair. I don't need a "second".
Some Other Dude: That sounds like an oppressive application of the dominant paradigm.
Chair: Fine, fine. Would anyone object coming to order? No? Thank you very much.
While it may seem to many of you that we have made great strides in having our ancient, holistic healing methods given an official stamp of approval (and perhaps Medicare reimbursement) we have some very troubling…
palmd | April 20, 2009A colleague of mine asked a great question: if you have one question to ask a booster of so-called alternative medicine in a public forum, what should it be? I'll give you my answer below the fold, then open the thread to see what you think.
My answer: "Can you please give specific examples of alternative medicine theories and modalities that have been abandoned because they have been found to be ineffective?"
I have information that some other skeptical doctor-bloggers seem to agree with this. Why? Why not ask, "can you give me specific evidence of a proven alternative theory/modality…
palmd | April 19, 2009My regular readers know that I hold the Huffington Post in the lowest possible regard when it comes to its medical writing. HuffPo offers a daily platform for the worst pseudo-science and infectious disease promotion. Apparently that was getting to hard, because now I think their down to phoning it in. Last week's post by a "body cleanse expert" reads like a late-night infomercial, and is about as accurate.
The article, with the fanciful title of, "Antibiotics Cause Cancer?" is written by Kim Evans whose medical qualifications are apparently limited to selling books on how to cleanse your…
palmd | April 18, 2009I've never done this before, but the previous threads are getting rather messy and I'm closing them down. Feel free to use this thread for your ongoing discussion. A few thoughts first.
Obviously some of the rhetoric is heated, which is fine. But if you're going to throw around invective, don't complain if it's thrown back. Also, please remember that an ad hominem argument is invalid if it substitutes for substantive argument, but that insults that simply color, rather that replace and argument are not invalid, just, well, colorful.
Also remember that when trying to understand how to take…
palmd | April 16, 2009Science is hard. It often requires us to put aside our beliefs and preconceptions to more accurately understand how the world works. But it is not in any way unimaginative. To paraphrase a wildly brilliant guy, every time a scientist formulates a hypothesis, she must imagine a different world. It can be a very creative process.
We advocates for science are often accused of being unimaginative and uncreative. This is false. We are also accused of being closed-minded. This is false. But it is also true. Scientists are very skeptical. To quote one of our regular readers:
To state the…
palmd | April 16, 2009As of this evening, I will be displaying the HONcode certification badge on the left sidebar of this blog. I was able to achieve this certification on my original wordpress blog, and then at denialism blog. The HONcode serves a specific, limited purpose, and some of you might be interested in what that purpose is, and how it is evolving.
If you have virus protection on your computer, it will (hopefully) warn you when you are about to enter a questionable site or perform a dangerous download. There is no analogous way to sort out good from bad medical sites. The Health on the Net…
palmd | April 15, 2009OK, OK, so the U.S. isn't a democracy per se but really a representative democracy, with a federalist set up. Still, most of us understand the basic idea of a democratic, federalist republic, right? The ultimate power resides with the citizens, who vote for representatives who, well, represent our interests in the seat of federal power. If we don't like the way we are being represented, we usually vote out the offending representatives. We also elect a chief executive, albeit a bit indirectly, and, like our representatives, if we don't like the job they're doing, we vote them out at the…
palmd | April 15, 2009First, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the naturopaty primary care challenge. It was far more successful than I could have hoped. A number of naturopaths and their supporters responded, most of them quite rationally. It takes guts to walk into the fire.
It also takes fanaticism.
I have always rather assumed that most naturopaths and other "alternative" healers are, on the whole, motivated by good. After reading all the comments, I still hold that assumption---most "alternative" healers probably mean well. That does not, however, divorce them from an ethical…
palmd | April 14, 2009So naturopaths want to be licensed to practice "primary care". I've come down pretty hard on this idea, but one of my colleagues is asking me to reconsider for some pretty good reasons.
If we license them as PCPs, then they must be held to the same standards as MDs, meaning they must provide insurers including medicare with PQRI data on quality measures and outcomes, and they must buy malpractice insurance (and lots of it). I have a feeling that as when they have bad outcomes and are found to not be following the standard of care, the trial lawyers can make a few more boat payments.
palmd | April 13, 2009Yesterday I issued a challenge to naturopathic physicians to justify why they should be considered competent primary care physicians. The best and most comprehensive answer received so far is the one from "Mona". Here is my analysis.
Her response, while not entirely "wrong", shows a frightening level of chaotic thinking and unsophistication.
As a naturopathic physician graduated from National College of Naturopathic Medicine in 1988, and having done a year's residency there in Family Practice I am happy to answer your relatively easy question. I see many diabetic patients who come with…
palmd | April 13, 2009One of the common themes in biology and medicine is the feeling that somehow there must be more. Creationist cults simply know that life must be more than matter, and mind-body dualists (which includes most alternative medicine advocates) are certain that humans are more than an "ugly bag of mostly water" (sorry for the geek reference). If you can stick with me here, I'll explain to you a bit of the history surrounding this fallacy.
Most of us intuitively feel that we are both a body and a person. In every day life, it makes a certain operational sense to think of our "mind" as being…
palmd | April 12, 2009Yes, we all know that Jon Stewart is a genius, but you have to watch this one to fully appreciate what a genius he really is.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Economic Crisis
Political Humor
palmd | April 12, 2009The PalCast is, obviously, a little behind. Due to real-life problems, it's been tough to find the 90 minutes of solitude and quiet necessary to crank out a decent podcast. However, I do have one in the hopper for this week...hopefully it will be out by tomorrow or so.
Thanks for your patience.
palmd | April 11, 2009Yesterday's piece about naturopathy lead to a nice conversation, but I realized we're missing something. We don't actually have a naturopath to defend the profession.
You see, if, for example, you are curious what your primary care physician might recommend to you, you can go to the American College of Physicians website, or the US Preventative Services Task Force to get an idea of what the standard of care and evidence is for screening, prevention, and treatment. What isn't clear to me is what a naturopathic primary care provider has to offer.
Here's my question, and I encourage any and…
palmd | April 10, 2009I'm a primary care physician. What I, other internists, pediatricians, and family medicine docs do is prevent and treat common diseases. When we get to diseases that require more specialized care, we refer to our specialist colleagues. There is a movement afoot to broaden the role of naturopaths to make them primary care doctors. The big difference between naturopaths and real primary care physicians (PCPs) is that naturopaths haven't gone to medical school, completed a post-graduate residency program, and taken their specialty boards. Why is this important? If a naturopath wants to be…
palmd | April 8, 2009I'm not real interested in blogging about politics. It's just not my thing. But the recent increase in absurd and frankly scary rhetoric from the right is giving me the shpilkes. It's not just the tea-baggers (heh heh...I said "tea bagger"), but I might as well say something about their lame-ass tea parties. These tea parties differ, but many of them involve sending tea bags to a representative or to the IRS to protest taxes. These "parties" don't actually protest higher taxes, just the idea of taxes. After all, taxes have always sucked, and no one was having tea parties under Reagan,…
palmd | April 8, 2009I'm not one for long posts on religion, but with the Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) upon us and Easter rapidly approaching, there are a few things worth noting.
Spring festivals have probably been going on since people began planting crops. Easter (and the Passover from which it descended) are both, at their heart, reinterpretations of pagan spring/fertility holidays. But that's not news. Let's (briefly) review the basics of these holidays.
Pesach is the Jewish festival that celebrates the (supposed) Exodus from Egypt. Over the last couple of thousand years there have been many…