Medical marijuana as the new herbalism, part 4: Cannabis for autism
Medical marijuana. It’s promoted as a seeming panacea that can cure whatever ails you. While there are potentially useful medicinal compounds in marijuana, in general the medical marijuana movement vastly oversells the promise. Nowhere is this more true than for cancer and autism, where there is no compelling evidence that cannabis cures cancer. Worse, parents are subjecting autistic children to cannabis with...
Bastions of quackademic medicine: Georgetown University
We frequently discuss a disturbing phenomenon known as quackademic medicine. Basically, quackademic medicine is a phenomenon that has taken hold over the last two decades in medical academia in which once ostensibly science-based medical schools and academic medical centers embrace quackery. This embrace was once called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) but among quackademics the preferred term is now “integrative medicine.” Of...
Should physicians and managed care organizations offer homeopathy?
Anyone who reads Science-Based Medicine on even a semi-regular basis will know our collective opinion of homeopathy. Basically, at its core, homeopathy is pure quackery. I don’t care if it’s repetitive to say this yet again because it can’t be emphasized enough times that homeopathy is The One Quackery To Rule Them All. OK, there are others that compete for that title,...
GcMAF and the life and death of an autism quack
[Editor’s note: This is an extra bonus post that has appeared elsewhere. This week’s post will appear in several hours.] A mysterious apparent suicide and conspiracy theories Three weeks ago, those of us who combat the antivaccine movement noted the then-very recent death of an autism quack and antivaccinationist (but I repeat myself) who’s been big in the “autism biomed” movement for...
The uncertainty surrounding mammography continues
Mammography is a topic that, as a breast surgeon, I can’t get away from. It’s a tool that those of us who treat breast cancer patients have used for over 30 years to detect breast cancer earlier in asymptomatic women and thus decrease their risk of dying of breast cancer through early intervention. We have always known, however, that mammography is an...
The war in California over nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates, part 2
California has passed SB 277 into law. Beginning in the 2016-2017 school year, SB 277 will eliminate personal belief exemptions to school vaccine requirements. This will benefit the health of California schoolchildren, but the law is not perfect and already antivaxers are looking for loopholes.
NCCIH and the true evolution of integrative medicine
There can be no doubt that, when it comes to medicine, The Atlantic has an enormous blind spot. Under the guise of being seemingly “skeptical,” the magazine has, over the last few years, published some truly atrocious articles about medicine. I first noticed this during the H1N1 pandemic, when The Atlantic published an article lionizing flu vaccine “skeptic” Tom Jefferson, who, unfortunately,...
In which I steal a title: Is medicine a scientific enterprise?
A week ago, I attended the Center For Inquiry Reason for Change Conference, where I participated in a panel on—what else?—alternative medicine with—who else?—Harriet Hall and our fearless leader Steve Novella. Before the panel, we all gave brief talks on areas that we consider important. As you might expect, I chose to give a brief introduction to what I like to call...
The war in California over nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates
California is about to pass a law that would eliminate personal belief exemptions to school vaccine requirements. The antivaccine movement is losing its collective mind over it. Let's just say that Holocaust analogies are flying fast and furious.
Mandatory breast density reporting legislation: The law outpaces science, and not in a good way
Over the years, our bloggers here at Science-Based Medicine have written time and time again about the intersection of law and science in medicine. Sometimes, we support a particular bill or law, such as laws to protect children against religion-inspired medical neglect; laws making it harder for manufacturers of homeopathic “medicines” to deceive the public; or California Bill AB 2109, a bill...