Month: April 2008

The Increase in Autism Diagnoses: Two Hypotheses

A new study sheds more light on the question of what is causing the recent increase in the rate of diagnosis of autism. Professor Dorothy Bishop from the University of Oxford studied adults who were diagnosed in 1980 with a developmental language disorder. She asked the question – if these people were subjected to current diagnostic criteria for autism, how many of...

/ April 16, 2008

Charlatan: Quackery Then and Now

Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam, by Pope Brock, is not only a rip-roaring good read, but it brings up serious issues about regulation of medical practice and prosecution of quackery. It tells the story of John R. Brinkley MD, who transplanted goat glands into people, and of Morris Fishbein MD, the editor...

/ April 15, 2008

Would you like a liver flush with that colon cleanse?

I have to apologize for last week’s post. I’m not apologizing for the subject matter (the obsession that reigns supreme among some alt-med aficionados over “cleansing” their colons to “purge toxins” and achieve the super-regularity of several bowel movements a day). Rather, I’m sorry I probably didn’t emphasize quite strongly enough just how disgusting one of the links that I included was....

/ April 14, 2008

The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part III)

A Reminder (Mainly to Myself): this Blog will Eventually get back to Discussing the NIH Trial of the “Gonzalez Regimen” for Treating Cancer of the Pancreas† Which, if you’ll recall, is an arduous dietary and “detox” regimen that includes 150 pills per day, many of which contain pancreatic enzymes, two “coffee enemas” per day, “a complete liver flush and a clean sweep and purge on...

/ April 11, 2008

Deception and Ethics in Sectarian Medicine

In January I had the pleasure of attending TAM 5.5 in Fort Lauderdale. On the last day of the conference the JREF had an open house where anyone interested could come see the inner workings at the JREF facility. Since I had a rental car I decided to go through the lobby to see if anyone needed a ride, and sure enough...

/ April 10, 2008

Studying Placebo Effects

Measuring placebo effects (often misleadingly referred to as the placebo effect – singular) is a part of standard clinical trial design, because they need to be distinguished from the physiological effects of the treatment under study. Rarely, however, are placebo effects the actual target being measured, but such is the case with a new study published in the most recent edition of...

/ April 9, 2008

SPECT Scans at the Amen Clinic – A New Phrenology?

Phrenology was a 19th century pseudoscience that claimed to associate brain areas with specific personality traits. It was based on palpating bumps on the skull and was totally bogus. New brain imaging procedures are giving us real insights into brain function in health and disease. They are still blunt instruments, and it is easy and tempting to over-interpret what we are seeing....

/ April 8, 2008

Colon “cleanses”: A load of you know what…

One of the more popular treatments in alternative medicine is the "colon cleanse," a treatment based on the idea that there is 20 lbs. worth of accumulated feces in your colon that is slowly poisoning you. There's only one way to put it. Colon cleansing is a load of crap.

/ April 7, 2008

The Weekly Waluation of the Weasel Words of Woo #3

Last Week’s Entry: Everyone’s a Winner! The resounding total of 4 “translations” for the second W^5 entry might have been trying to tell me something…nah! I gotta say that each of the four nailed the central point: the esteemed Institute of Medicine (IOM), a subset of the esteemed National Academy of Sciences, has decided that it’s just fine—no, it is “important” and...

/ April 5, 2008

The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part II)

Laetrile and the Politics of NIH-Sponsored trials of “Alternative Cancer Treatments” Part I of this blog ended by asking how, in light of the implausible and arduous nature of the “Gonzalez regimen” for cancer of the pancreas, and the unconvincing “best case series,” the NIH could ever have decided to fund a trial of it.† This entry will begin to answer that question. In so...

/ April 4, 2008