Ebola outbreaks: Science versus fear mongering and quackery
“Ebola virus particles” by Thomas W. Geisbert, Boston University School of Medicine – PLoS Pathogens, November 2008 doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000225. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons. Without a doubt the big medical story of the last week or so has been the ongoing outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa, the most deadly in history thus far. Indeed, as of this...
Cold reality versus the wishful thinking of cryonics
We all seek immortality in some way. Death has been one of the prime terrors haunting us since humans first started realizing that every living thing dies and death is permanent. After all, no one wants to face the end of everything that one has been, is, and will be. Indeed, a key feature of many religions is a belief that death...
“Atavistic oncology”: Another dubious cancer therapy to be avoided
An idea promulgated by physicist Paul Davies that cancer is a reversion to a primordial cell type has been making the rounds. It's even spawned a form of quackery, atavistic chemotherapy, promoted by Dr. Frank Arguello. Davies, in his hubris and his view of himself as an "outsider," seems to think he's the first scientist to have ever had this "brilliant insight,"...
How “they” view “us” revisited: Mike Adams goes off the deep end
Internet crank and quack Mike Adams recently likened Monsanto and its supporters to Nazis, as he so frequently does when it comes to people and companies he hates. This time he went too far, echoing the sentiment that "“it is the moral right — and even the obligation — of human beings everywhere to actively plan and carry out the killing of...
The false hope of “right-to-try” metastasizes to Michigan
State "right-to-try" bills are springing up like kudzu all over the US. Their advocates promise that they will save lives by allowing terminally ill patients access to experimental therapeutics, when in fact they are highly unlikely to do any such thing given that the federal government, not the states, controls drug approval. In reality, right-to-try laws are a cruel sham that will...
The Texas Medical Board vs. Stanislaw Burzynski, 2014 edition
Here we go again. I'll give the Texas Medical Board credit for one thing. It's persistent. It's going after Stanislaw Burzynski's medical license again. Will this finally be the time the TMB puts a stop to Burzynski's abuse of the clinical trial process and patients? Or will this be a replay of the 1990s, with Burzynski slithering away yet again?
Medical marijuana as the new herbalism, part 1: Science versus the politics of weed in New York and beyond
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. The truth is far more prosaic and nuanced.
The Center for Inquiry weighs in on the FDA’s mishandling of Stanislaw Burzynski’s clinical trials
The Center for Inquiry points out how what Stanislaw Burzynski is doing corrupts the clinical trial process and harms patients.
Stanislaw Burzynski’s propaganda victory on antineoplastons: The FDA really caves
Once more, the FDA fails to shut down Stanislaw Burzynski's clinic and antineoplaston manufacturing operation. Cancer patients will suffer as a result of the FDA's failure.
Did Facebook and PNAS violate human research protections in an unethical experiment?
Ed. Note: NOTE ADDENDUM I daresay that I’m like a lot of you in that I spend a fair bit of time on Facebook. This blog has a Facebook page (which, by the way, you should head on over and Like immediately). I have a Facebook page, several of our bloggers, such as Harriet Hall, Steve Novella, Mark Crislip, Scott Gavura, Paul...