Category: Clinical Trials

Coca-Cola and Corporate Sponsored Research

A new study reveals that Coca-Cola included restrictive clauses in some research funding contracts. This is a good opportunity to review how such behavior can be stopped.

/ May 8, 2019

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Rituximab

IV rituximab has been used to treat chronic fatigue syndrome. A large, well-designed new study shows it doesn't work.

/ April 16, 2019

Medical Apartheid

Harriet Washington's book tells the dark history of medical experimentation on black Americans. It also reveals broader problems of inequality, poor science, and human failures.

/ April 9, 2019

Soothing Your Heart: Does practicing self-compassion have physical and mental health benefits?

Does a recent study demonstrate that being kind to yourself has benefits for your mental and physical health?

/ April 1, 2019

The “Evidence” for Prodovite Is Junk Science

Prodovite is a liquid nutritional supplement marketed as "nutrition you can feel." The claims are pseudoscientific nonsense and the single unblinded clinical study is junk science that relies on a bogus test: live cell microscopy.

/ March 12, 2019

Naturopaths try (and fail yet again) to argue that they are science-based

That booster of all things "integrative," John Weeks has devoted the entire most recent issue of The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, which he edits, to trying to demonstrate that naturopathy is science-based. It does not go well. Same as it ever was.

/ March 11, 2019

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: A Fiasco with a Silver Lining

The Tuskegee syphilis experiment studied black men with advanced syphilis for 40 years. Patients were lied to and prevented from getting treatment. A black mark in the history of American medicine, it led to important reforms.

/ March 5, 2019

Drug maker challenges FDA on animal testing

A drug maker claims an FDA-required toxicity study in animals is unnecessary to determine safety and urges others to question the routine use of animal testing.

/ February 28, 2019

The Magic Feather Effect: Placebos and the Power of Belief in Alternative Medicine

In her book The Magic Feather Effect, journalist Melanie Warner covers placebo research, shows that alternative medicine is placebo medicine, takes a "try it yourself" approach, and gives belief and anecdotes more credit than they deserve.

/ February 19, 2019
Clinica 0-19

Clínica 0-19: False hope in Monterrey for brain cancer patients (part 4)

Last week, Annabelle Potts, a girl with the deadly brain cancer DIPG, passed away. She had made the news in Australia and worldwide because she had been treated at Clínica 0-19 in Monterrey, Mexico, where Drs. Alberto Garcia and Alberto Siller treat DIPG patients with a secret unproven mix of intra-arterial chemotherapy injected directly into the arteries feeding the brainstem, all while...

/ January 21, 2019