Category: Clinical Trials
AllerVarx: A Questionable Remedy for Allergic Rhinitis
AllerVarx, a new dietary supplement, claims to relieve nasal allergy symptoms, but the only "evidence" is a single disreputable clinical trial with no control group. There is no reason to try this unproven remedy when there are so many effective remedies offered by mainstream medicine.
Does chemotherapy cause cancer to spread?
Earlier this month, a study was published in Science Translational Medicine that showed how chemotherapy before surgery can stimulate breast cancer invasiveness and invasion under certain circumstances. Not surprisingly, alternative cancer cure mavens everywhere are spinning the study as "proof" that chemotherapy has no benefit and causes only harm (and so you should by their nostrums instead). Unsurprisingly, the actual results are...
Emergency acupuncture!
For whatever reason, acupuncturists and acupuncture believers think that acupuncture can be useful in emergency situations, be they in the field ("battlefield acupuncture," anyone?) or in the ER. They even do studies purporting to show that. This is yet another of such a clinical trial, albeit larger than usual. Guess what? It doesn't really show what it's advertised to show. I explain...
Can mind-body practices “reprogram” our DNA?
A recent systematic review has been touted as demonstrating that "mind-body" practices like yoga can reprogram our DNA. There are several reasons to doubt these claims, not the least of which is the history of bias in past studies on this topic.
Medical marijuana as the new herbalism, part 5: Turning herbalism into science-based medicine
There’s a new clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing a beneficial effect due to cannabidiol, a chemical isolated from marijuana, on drug-resistant seizures due to Dravet syndrome. Although there are a fair number of caveats, this is how you begin to turn the herbalism that characterizes medical marijuana advocacy into science-based medicine.
Quackery infiltrates The BMJ
As quackery in the form of "integrative medicine" has increasingly been "integrated" into medicine, medical journals are starting to notice and succumb to the temptation to decrease their skepticism. The BMJ, unfortunately, is the latest to do so. It won't be the last.
Two (now retracted) studies purporting to show that vaccinated children are sicker than unvaccinated children show nothing of the sort
Antivaccine websites have been touting two recently published studies as strong evidence that vaccinated children are less healthy than unvaccinated children. The studies are so flawed that they show nothing of the sort. Even more hilariously, the bottom-feeding predatory open access journal that published them appears to have retracted them.
Cries the acupuncturist, “Medicine is biased against us, and there’s a double standard!”
A recent article in Popular Science argues that medicine has a bias against acupuncture, holding it to a higher standard of evidence than conventional medical interventions. Even if there is a double standard, the answer is not to recommend acupuncture, but rather to stop recommending medical procedures that don't work.
Corrigendum. The Week in Review for 05/07/2017.
Death from alternative medicine impersonators. An acupuncture study done so acupuncturists can get insurance money? A chiropractor has to refund the feds one million dollars. And more.
Afterword. Chiropractic and The New York Times. Is the newspaper TRYING to prove Trump right?
The New York Times had to go an publish "For Bad Backs, It May Be Time to Rethink Biases About Chiropractors" right after my Friday extravaganza, "Spinal Manipulation and the JAMA Meta-Analysis: An Analysis of Fuel. Sigh. Doody [sic] Calls.