Washington bills: Christian Science no longer an excuse for denying medical care
All states try to protect children from neglect, abandonment and mistreatment, such as deprivation of clothing, shelter, food and medical care. This includes civil laws which permit the removal of a child from the home and other protective interventions. Criminal laws protect children as well by, for example, making nonsupport a misdemeanor or criminal neglect a felony. Washington State law prohibits criminal...
New FDA regulatory role threatens bogus diagnostic tests
The FDA regulates in vitro diagnostic devices (IVDs) as medical devices. IVDs analyze human samples, such as blood, saliva, tissue and urine. However, in the past, the agency did not use its authority to regulate what are known as “laboratory-developed tests” (LDTs), tests developed and performed at a single laboratory, with all samples sent to that particular lab for testing. Instead, it...
2014: Chiropractors, naturopaths and acupuncturists lose in state legislatures
I am happy to report some good news: chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists and assorted other practitioners of pseudo-medicine didn’t fare too well in the 2013-2014 state legislative sessions. We’ve been following their legislative efforts all year over at the Society for Science-Based Medicine. Some state legislatures meet in yearly sessions. At the end of the year, pending bills die with the session. Some...
SFSBM Report upsets naturopaths. We’re fine with that.
The Maryland Naturopathic Doctors Association is not pleased with the Society for Science-Based Medicine. Not at all. That is a good thing, for several reasons. It demonstrates the importance of stopping naturopathic licensing (and practice expansion) legislation in the state legislatures. It shows how they handle legitimate criticism of their practices. And it is a lesson in their modus operandi of obfuscating...
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today is Thanksgiving, a national holiday in the U.S., and I am taking the day off to celebrate with my family. See you in two weeks.
Political Science: Chronic Lyme Disease
New York may soon join a handful of other states who reject science-based guidelines for the treatment of Lyme disease in favor of ideological guidelines based on the vociferous lobbying of patients and “Lyme literate” health care providers. Ignoring science is an unfortunate but well-known legislative phenomenon. I’ve discussed it a number of times on SBM, in the form of Legislative Alchemy,...
“Quackery: A $10 Billion Scandal”
Who would you guess authored a 250-page report which begins with this Preface? This report marks the culmination of an intensive four-year review of quackery and its impact on the elderly. . . As this report details, quackery has traveled far from the day of the pitchman and covered wagon to emerge as big business. Those who orchestrate and profit from the...
Connecticut “modernizes” naturopathic scope of practice
Naturopathy has been legal in Connecticut for almost 90 years, but with a scope of practice limited to counseling and a few treatments like physiotherapy, colonic hydrotherapy and “natural substances.” There was no specific authority to diagnose and treat. All of that changed on October 1, 2014, courtesy of the Connecticut legislature, which, in the words of the American Association of Naturopathic...
Yahoo News spews NaturalNews anti-vaccine (and other) propaganda
Yahoo News appears to have confused NaturalNews with actual news. It’s not. NaturalNews is the in-house propaganda organ for Mike Adams, whom I’ll introduce in a minute (although he needs no introduction for most readers here). A couple of recent examples: A recycled story, over a year old, from NaturalNews, appearing on Yahoo News last week. It starts out as...