Year: 2011

The compassion gambit

I’ve spent the last three weeks writing about a “brave maverick doctor” by the name of Stanislaw Burzynski who claims that he can cure cancers that regular oncologists cannot. He uses a combination of what he calls “antineoplastons” (which, it turns out, are more or less than the active metabolites of an orphan drug known as sodium phenylbutyrate) plus a very expensive...

/ December 19, 2011

Alas poor Craniosacral. A SCAM of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

It is hard to Sokalize alternative medicine. The closest has been buttock reflexology/acupuncture, but that is a tame example.  Given the propensity for projections of the human body to appear on the iris, hand, foot, tongue, and ear, postulating a similar pattern on the buttocks are simple variations on a common SCAM (Supplements, Complementary and Alternative Medicine) theme. The buttocks?  Not really...

/ December 16, 2011

Vaccination mandate exemptions: gimme that ol’ time philosophy

Each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia require vaccination against certain diseases as a prerequisite to public and private school attendance, most commonly polio, mumps, measles, diphtheria, rubella, chicken pox, Heamophilus influenza type b, pertussis, tetanus, pneumococcal disease and hepatitis B. Unfortunately, mandatory vaccination for home-schooled children is rare. (1) All states provide medical exemptions to vaccination mandates for...

/ December 15, 2011

Defending CAM with Bad Logic and Bad Data

At SBM our mission is to promote the highest standards of science in medicine, and to explore exactly what that means, both in the specific and the general. We do spend a lot of space criticizing so-called CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) because it represents a semi-organized attempt to reduce or even eliminate the science-based standard of care, and to sow confusion...

/ December 14, 2011

Phthalates and BPA: Of Mice and Men

Is your soup poisoning you? In a recent study  subjects who ate canned vegetable soup had markedly increased levels of BPA in their urine compared to those who ate freshly prepared soup. We are constantly bombarded with alarmist warnings about the dangerous chemicals in the products we use. Especially BPA (Bisphenol A) and phthalates. Beware plastic bottles! Beware rubber ducks! And now,...

/ December 13, 2011

Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, antineoplastons, and the selling of an orphan drug as a cancer cure

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been spending a lot of time (and, characteristically, verbiage) analyzing the phenomenon known as Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski and his “cancer cure” known as antineoplastons. In part I of this series, Stanislaw Burzynski: Bad medicine, a bad movie, and bad P.R., I used the legal threats against bloggers criticizing the credulous promotion by the British press...

/ December 12, 2011

Integrative Medicine: “Patient-Centered Care” is the new Medical Paternalism

Integrative Pitchmen Several of us have written about how contemporary quacks have artfully pitched their wares to a higherbrow market than their predecessors were accustomed to, back in the day. Through clever packaging,* quacks today can reasonably hope to become professors at prestigious medical schools, to control and receive substantial grant money from the NIH, to preside over reviews for the Cochrane...

/ December 9, 2011

Vitamin B12 – The Energy Panacea?

Having spent many hours working in close proximity to a wall of vitamins, I’ve answered a lot of vitamin questions, and given a lot of recommendations. Before I can make a recommendation, I need to ask some questions of my own. My first is almost always, “Why do you want to take a vitamin?” The most common response I’m given is “insurance”...

/ December 8, 2011

Michael Specter on the Placebo Effect

Michael Specter is a good science journalist. I particularly enjoyed his book, Denialism. In a recent New Yorker article he tackles the difficult question of the placebo effect in modern medicine. While he does a fair job of hitting upon the key points of this question, I think he missed some important aspects of this question and allowed the views of Ted...

/ December 7, 2011

Eat Fat, Get Thin?

I recently received an e-mail from a high school science department head who is teaching a unit on nutritional science. He asked for my opinion of a YouTube video of a lecture advocating a high saturated fat diet. The speaker is Donald W. Miller, Jr., M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon at my alma mater, the University of Washington. My correspondent commented, “I have...

/ December 6, 2011