New Study on Homeopathic Cough Syrup for Children Reveals a Lack of Effectiveness and Ethics
On the pages of SBM we frequently discuss homeopathy, and rightfully so considering its position as one of the most pervasive yet dumbest forms of alternative medicine. Just yesterday our own Scott Gavura, who is neither pervasive nor dumb, wrote an excellent review of some recent improvements in the regulation of these ridiculous remedies in Canada, and I encourage readers to check...
Neck Adjustment for Newborn Supraventricular Tachycardia: More Chiropractic Manipulation of Reality…..
[Editor’s note: Not enough Clay for one day? Check out this post on homeopathy over at The Scientific Parent!] It was recently brought to my attention that a chiropractor was promoting his profession on Facebook by claiming to have treated and cured a potentially life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia. The condition in question, supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), can be very serious and even deadly in...
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Newborn Nursery: Hepatitis B Vaccine for Newborns
For those of you new to Science-Based Medicine, I am a pediatric hospitalist and spend the majority of my time caring for newborns. It’s an extremely rewarding experience on most days. The babies are usually healthy, the parents are usually happy and appreciative, and I get to give a lot of good news. I also get to dispel a lot of myths...
The Windi: Revolutionary Relief for Colic or a Pain in the Butt
We tend to cover some very serious topics here on Science-Based Medicine. In fact, most of our posts are downright depressing. This will hopefully not be one of them. In just the past few weeks we have written about the public health menace of anti-vaccine pseudoscience, autistic children being subjected to dangerous bleach enemas, and chiropractic-induced stroke in children. Unsurprisingly, there is...
Chiropractic Manipulation of the Neck Linked to Stroke in a 6-Year-Old Child…
The risk of suffering a stroke when undergoing aggressive chiropractic manipulation of the neck is not a new concern. We’ve discussed it several times on the pages of Science-Based Medicine over the years, most recently in November of 2014 when Steven Novella covered the death by chiropractor of 30-year-old Jeremy Youngblood, whose fatal brain injury occurred while seeking treatment for a sore...
Separating Fact from Fiction: The “Magic” of Epigenetics?
Every few years, it seems, a new concept emerges as the favorite go-to means of marketing unproven and highly implausible approaches to health care. Explanations of the proposed healing properties of homeopathic remedies incorporating quantum mechanics immediately comes to mind as an example of this phenomenon. Or how proponents of the most absurd treatments will just add “Nano” to anything and claim...
Ancient Origins of Modern Dietary Demons
There are few aspects of daily existence, particularly in modern society, that are more pervasive than advice on what we should eat. Everyone, including friends, family, strangers on Twitter and self-proclaimed experts in nutrition and health, seems to have an opinion on how to eat in order to improve and prolong our lives. Even legitimate organizations dedicated to the health and well-being...
March Madness: Basketball, Brackets and Psi! Oh my!
In 2011, psychologist Daryl Bem published a highly controversial series of nine experiments designed to tease out the potential existence of precognition, the ability to experience future events. In order to isolate the potential influence of future events on the present, Bem’s experimental design reversed the standard order of psychological investigations. In one experiment, for example, subjects were allowed to practice with...
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Not-So-Normal Newborn Nursery: Chiropractic and Craniosynostosis
Pediatricians, particularly those who spend a significant amount of time caring for newborns, see a lot of babies with unusually-shaped heads. Although to be fair, the fact that the overwhelming majority of vaginally-delivered babies, and quite a few born via Caesarean section, will have a transient and abnormal shape to their heads makes it, well, not unusual. In fact, I rarely make...
SSPE: A Deadly and Not-That-Rare Complication of Measles
[Editor’s note: We have two posts today, this post by our regular contributor Dr. Clay Jones, and an excellent guest post by William London about a chiropractor’s dubious neuropathy treatment protocol. Enjoy today or over the weekend!] As a pediatrician, even one who has spent the majority of his career caring only for hospitalized children, the death of a patient has been...