Category: Clinical Trials
Clínica 0-19: False hope in Monterrey for DIPG patients (part 1)
Drs. Alberto Siller and Alberto Garcia run Clínica 0-19 in Monterrey, Mexico, which has become a magnet for patients with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a deadly brain cancer. Unfortunately, their treatment is an unproven combination of 11 chemotherapy drugs injected into an artery feeding the brainstem, plus an unknown and unproven "immunotherapy." Of course it all costs $300,000 or more for...
Prevagen goes P-hacking
Can post-hoc data-dredging produce competent and reliable scientific evidence for Prevagen's claims of memory improvement? The FTC and consumer groups say "no."
So-Called Alternative Medicine
Edzard Ernst calls it "So-Called Alternative Medicine". This insider's view of SCAM is a new book from an prolific researcher and author.
Are generic drugs equivalent to brand-name drugs?
Generic drugs cost a fraction of brand-name drugs. What gives us confidence they are equivalent? Science.
Crowdfunding unproven stem cell treatments: overstated efficacy, unstated risks
Crowdfunding campaigns for unproven stem cell treatments exaggerate the benefits and underemphasize the risks, all the while raising considerable funds and generating social media buzz.
Essential Oils in the Ambulance
Aromatherapy with essential oils is pseudoscience, backed only with low quality studies guaranteed to show a placebo effect. Their growing popularity warns that better science education is needed.
PLOS ONE, peer review, and a “crappy” acupuncture study
Meta-analyses can sometimes suffer from the "GIGO problem" (garbage in, garbage out). The publication of a "crappy" acupuncture "network meta-analysis" for acupuncture and chronic constipation illustrates the GIGO problem on steroids and reveals a problem with peer review.
TIC’D OFF
Two years ago we discussed the TicTocStop, a dental appliance that the inventors assured us would help mitigate the symptoms of Tourette Syndrome. In the intervening years things have...not gone well. This illustrates the need for skepticism regarding questionable medical claims, and the importance of initiatives like AllTrials to ensure the good, the bad, and the ugly research is available to everyone.
Stem Cell Tourism Comes Home
You used to have to go to China to get ripped off by fraudulent stem cell clinics. Now you can get conned right here at home.
Bee Venom is Snake Oil
Bee venom acupuncture is a double-barrel pseudoscience that provides new example of an old problem - the use of poor quality preclinical research to justify the inclusion of nonsense in medicine.