Category: Health Fraud
MAHA: Everything old is new again, except this time antiscience cranks (like Stanislaw Burzynski) are in charge
Returning from my hiatus, I couldn't decide on a specific new topic, mainly because so much bad stuff happened in my absence. So, in this post I back up a bit to reflect on how RFK Jr.'s "make America healthy again" is nothing new. What is new is that the antiscience-cranks are in charge.
DIY Botox: Why Self-Injecting a Neurotoxin Is a Terrible Idea
DIY Botox is popular on TikTok, but injecting an internet-sourced neurotoxin into your face is a gamble that can can lead to serious harms.
ALS and the market for false hope
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is probably one of the most devastating diagnoses that we should all hope to never hear. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, or motor neuron disease, ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that are responsible for controlling voluntary muscles. As the disease advances, both upper and lower...
Surgeon General nominee Dr. Casey Means and functional medicine: Legitimizing quackery
Surgeon general nominee Dr. Casey Means is an advocate of "functional medicine." She, MAHA, and a new "board certification" will falsely legitimize quackery.
GLP-1 Patch Scams: The Science Doesn’t Support the Hype
GLP-1 drugs work; GLP-1 patches don’t
Big Trouble in Little Pharma
The Excruciating Inspection of David Geier’s DAP Pharmaceuticals
No turbo cancer at ASCO: William Makis vs. Scott Adams and A Midwestern Doctor instead?
I was in Chicago this weekend attending the ASCO meeting, the largest oncology meeting in the world. Nary a talk or poster about "turbo cancer" was seen, but that doesn't mean there wasn't cancer quack fight online to distract me from the meeting.
The Mercola Tapes: One of the wealthiest antivaxxers in the world is scammed
Dr. Joe Mercola embraced "alternative health" in the late 1990s, including quackery and antivax, and has since become very wealthy. Lately, he's fallen under the spell of a psychic grifter and declared himself to be the "new Jesus." What will happen to his business empire?
Quackery (still) kills: A five-year-old boy dies in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber
Even as quacks and antivaxxers take over our federal government's health apparatus, let's not forget why we need stronger, not laxer, regulation of "unconventional" medical practices.
Apple Cider Vinegar
I just watched the new Netflix series, Apple Cider Vinegar, which tells the story of Belle Gibson, an Australian woman who launched a wellness business based largely on the false claim that she had survived “terminal brain cancer”. It is worth a watch, and overall I feel the writers (this is a fictionalized version, not a documentary) captured the industry of fake...