Year: 2008
Why would medical schools associate with quackery? Or, How we did it.
Why would medical schools risk association with quackery? …a question from a Washington Post reporter in 1998. The following hypothetical answer composed in response was never sent. It awaited a proper forum. Could this be one? Well, Jeff, quackery is a pejorative term. Some time ago we recognized that words raise emotions and mental pictures. We recognized the cognitive dissonance raised by...
Politics and Science at the HHS
When politics and science collide, shenanigans are likely to ensue. Politics is often antithetical to science because the former is about persuasion and value judgments while the latter is about objectivity and transparency. Science cannot function properly under the yoke of political ideology. The infiltration of unscientific and anti-scientific practices and ideas into mainstream medicine is primarily an act of politics and...
Death By Medicine
Critics of “conventional” medicine delight in pointing out how much harm it causes. Carolyn Dean, Gary Null, and others have written extensively about “death by medicine.” A typical statement (from Mercola.com) says: A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital,...
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons: Ideology trumps science-based medicine
The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPANDS) is the official journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). The AAPS tries to represent itself as a legitimate medical professional society, but in reality it promotes antivaccine views, HIV/AIDS denialism, and an Ayn Randian view of the world in which doctors are supermen, Medicare is unconstitutional, and the government should...
Another State Promotes the Pseudoscientific Cult that is “Naturopathic Medicine.” Part 2
The “Safety of Naturopathic Treatment” In their nationwide effort to convince lawmakers to pronounce them primary care physicians, “educated” naturopaths have repeatedly claimed that their “natural” treatments are “safer and gentler” than those offered by medical doctors. The Alliance Legislative Workbook, a website that for several years provided strategies and “talking points” for ND-activists seeking state licensure, made this assertion in 2001:...
The FDA Cracks Down on Fake Cancer Cures
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency that regulates the drug industry in the US, put out a press release yesterday warning “Individuals and Firms to Stop Selling Fake Cancer ‘Cures’.” The press release reports: “Although promotions of bogus cancer ‘cures’ have always been a problem, the Internet has provided a mechanism for them to flourish,” said Margaret O’K. Glavin, the...
Not Treating – A Neglected Option
One of the criticisms of modern medicine is that doctors prescribe too many pills. That’s true. Patients and doctors sometimes get caught up in a mutual misunderstanding. The patient assumes that he needs a prescription, and the doctor assumes that the patient wants a prescription. But sometimes patients don’t either need or want a prescription. I’ll use myself as an illustration. I...
Why the latest Geier & Geier paper is not evidence that mercury in vaccines causes autism
Several people have been sending me either links to this paper or even the paper itself: Young HA, Geier DA, Geier MR. (2008). Thimerosal exposure in infants and neurodevelopmental disorders: An assessment of computerized medical records in the Vaccine Safety Datalink. J Neurol Sci. 2008 May 14 [Epub ahead of print]. (Full text here.) A few have asked me whether I was...
The media versus the frontiers of medicine and surgery
A couple of months ago, one of my esteemed co-bloggers, Wally Sampson, wrote an excellent article about borderlines in research in conventional medicine. Such borderlines are particularly common in my area of expertise (cancer, which is also Dr. Sampson’s area of expertise) because there are so many cancers for which we do not as yet have reliably curative therapies. Patients faced with...
Another State Promotes the Pseudoscientific Cult that is “Naturopathic Medicine.” Part 1
Minnesota has recently become the 15th state in the U.S. to formally endorse the claims of a tiny group of naturopaths who portray themselves as physicians.* The bill , like the popular-media “CAM” reports that Steve Novella criticized on Wednesday, merely parrots what these naturopaths claim about themselves. It reveals no attempt to investigate or to judge the tenets of the field. The following excerpts present...