Author
Statistical Errors in Mainstream Journals
While we frequently on SBM target the worst abuses of science in medicine, it’s important to recognize that doing rigorous science is complex and mainstream scientists often fall short of the ideal. In fact, one of the advantages of exploring pseudoscience in medicine is developing a sensitive detector for errors in logic, method, and analysis. Many of the errors we point out...
Does Weight Matter?
Determining the net health effects of independent factors can be tricky, especially when those factors cannot be controlled for in experimental studies. For things like body mass index (BMI) we must rely on observational data and triangulate with multiple studies to isolate the contributions from BMI. But it can be done. The data, however, are likely to be complex and noisy, and...
Some Encouraging Backlash Against Nonsense
One of the themes of SBM is that modern health care should be based upon solid scientific ground. Interventions should be based on a risk vs benefit analysis using the best available scientific evidence (clinical and basic science). As an extension of this, the standard of care needs to be a science-based standard. Science is (or at least should be) objective and...
Pseudoscience Sells
It is an unfortunate truth that there is money in pseudoscience, particularly medical pseudoscience. Money both attracts charlatans and also funds their activities, which includes marketing pseudoscience and defending their claims from scientific scrutiny. In this way the game is rigged in favor of pseudoscience. With0ut effective regulation, sites like ours are forced to play whack-a-mole with the medical pseudoscience du jour....
Comparative Drug Research
The latest issue of the BMJ contains an editorial recommending that regulators (this is in the UK, but the argument applies in the US and elsewhere) should require pharmaceutical companies to provide research on direct comparison to existing therapies as part of the approval process. The authors, Sorenson, Naci, Cylus, and Mossialos, write: When a drug comes to market, evidence on the...
Acupuncture and Acoustic Waves
Here is yet another study claiming to show “how acupuncture works” when in fact it does nothing of the kind. It does, however, reveal the bias of the researchers – it is, in fact, surprising that it was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Unfortunately, the mainstream media is dutifully reporting the biased claims of the researchers without any independent verification or analysis....
Homeopathy and Plausibility
The fundamental concept of science-based medicine (SBM) is that medical practice should be based upon the best available science. This may seem obvious, but there are many important details to its application, such as the relationship between clinical and basic science. Clinical claims require clinical evidence, but clinical evidence can be tricky and is often preliminary. It is therefore helpful (I would...
Homeopathic Thuggery
There have been many cases now of big companies or organizations, or wealthy individuals, threatening to sue or actually suing a blogger for libel. The most famous case is that of Simon Singh who was sued by the British Chiropractic Association over comments he made in an article. Simon braved through the expensive and exhaustive legal process (which is especially onerous in...
The Scam Scam
In 1994 Congress (pushed by Senators Harkin and Hatch) passed DSHEA (the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act). As regular readers of SBM know, we are not generally happy about this law, which essentially deregulated the supplement industry. Under DSHEA supplements, a category which specifically was defined to include herbals, are regulated more like food than like medicinals. Since then the flood-gates...
The Power of Faith and Prayer?
Part of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) movement is an attempt to insert spirituality into the philosophy and practice of medicine. Most energy healing modalities, for example, have spiritual underpinnings. At the same time there are many attempts to use science to validate the healing power of faith. This is also an issue that is very attractive to the media, who...