The early detection of cancer and improved survival: More complicated than most people think
“Early detection of cancer saves lives.” How many times have you heard this statement or something resembling it? It’s a common assumption (indeed, a seemingly common sense assumption) that detecting cancer early is always a good thing. Why wouldn’t it always be a good thing, after all? For many cancers, such as breast cancer and colon cancer, there’s little doubt tha early...
Mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants and autism: Is there a correlation?
On April 30, outside the courthouse in Dallas, a press conference/rally was held. This particular rally was in response to a new study published by a group led by Dr. Raymond F. Palmer in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, whose conclusion was that autism prevalence correlates strongly with proximity...
The North Carolina Board of Medical Examiners, Dr. Rashid Buttar, and protecting the public from practitioners of non-science-based medicine
One of the most contentious and difficult aspects of trying to improve medical care in this country is enforcing a minimal “standard of care.” Optimally, this standard of care should be based on science- and evidence-based medicine and act swiftly when a practitioner practices medicine that doesn’t meet even a minimal requirement for scientific studies and clinical trials to support it. At...
Barriers to practicing science-based surgery
Much to the relief of regular readers, I will now change topics from those of the last two weeks. Although fun and amusing (except to those who fall for them), continuing with such material for too long risks sending this blog too far in a direction that no one would want. So, instead, this week it’s time to get serious again. A...
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....
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.
On the ethics of clinical trials of homeopathy in Third World countries
I’m on the record multiple times as saying that I reject the entire concept and nomenclature of “alternative medicine” as being distinct from “conventional” medicine as a false dichotomy, when in reality there should be just “medicine.” Indeed, if there is one major theme to which this blog is dedicated it’s that medicine should be as much as possible science-based, a concept...
When impressive science fails to impress patients
One of the greatest challenges in medicine can sometimes be to convince patients that the results of scientific and medical research apply to them, or, at the very least, to explain how such results apply. One of the reasons that medicine based not on science or evidence fluorishes is because it can be so hard to explain to patients why a particular...
The ultimate in “integrative medicine”: Integrating the unscientific into the medical school curriculum
For the second week in a row I find myself throwing out the original post that I had planned on doing in favor of a different topic. The reason this week is, quite simply, having read Dr. Atwood’s excellent two part post Misleading Language: The Common Currency of “CAM” Characterizations (Part I; Part II). I don’t at this time intend to expand...
The Hannah Poling case and the rebranding of autism by antivaccinationists as a mitochondrial disorder
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I seem to have taken on the role of the primary vaccine blogger of this little group of bloggers trying desperately to hold the forces of pseudoscience and magical thinking at bay in the face of powerful forces trying to “integrate” prescientific belief systems with science- and evidence-based medicine, a process that would...