Category: Health Fraud
What’s in your supplement?
It could be the ingredients on the bottle. It could be drugs. It could be ground-up snails!
The Quack Full Employment Act
Quacks, charlatans and snake oil salesmen are closely watching “The Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act,” Senate Bill 13-215 (SB 215) as it wends its way through the Colorado Legislature. I imagine a few felons about to be released from prison are keeping tabs on the bill too, for reasons we’ll get to in a minute. SB 215 passed the Senate on...
The “no compassion” gambit
As usual, I was impressed with Mark Crislip’s post on Friday in which he discussed the boundaries between science-based medicine and what we sometimes refer to as woo or what Mark often refers to as sCAM. It got me to thinking a bit, which is always a dangerous thing, particularly when such thinking leads to my writing something for my not-so-super-secret other...
Blame and magical thinking: The consequences of the autism “biomed” movement
That the myth that vaccines cause autism is indeed nothing more than a myth, a phantom, a delusion unsupported by science is no longer in doubt. In fact, it’s been many years now since it was last taken seriously by real scientists and physicians, as opposed to crank scientists and physicians, who are still selling the myth. Thanks to them, and a...
The DC as PCP? The battle continues
Chiropractors are trying to rebrand themselves as primary care physicians, a topic both Harriet Hall and I have addressed (here and here) on SBM. Toward this end, they are seeking the expansion of their scope of practice, via the magic of legislative alchemy, to include the prescription and administration of drugs. Not drugs that any self-respecting M.D. would use, but drugs nonetheless. That...
Closing out 2012 with a bit of fun: Do you want some quantum with that pseudoscience?
today is the last day of 2012. As I contemplated what I’d write for my last post of 2012, I wondered what to do. Should I do a “year in review” sort of post? Naahh. Too trite and too much work. Should I just do what I normally do? There are, after all, many topics that are out there, some of them...
The CAM Docket: Boiron III, et al.
Despite denying wrongdoing, Boiron was still required to reimburse consumers for their products after losing a consumer fraud lawsuit.
The Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy: Equivocal as Predicted
The ill-advised, NIH-sponsored Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) is finally over. 839 human subjects were randomized to receive Na2EDTA infusions; 869 were randomized to receive placebo infusions. The results were announced at this weekend’s American Heart Association meeting in Los Angeles. In summary, the TACT authors report a slight advantage for chelation over placebo in the “primary composite endpoint,” a combination...
Alternative medicine use and breast cancer (2012 update)
[Editor’s note: It’s a holiday here in the U.S.; consequently, here is a “rerun” from my other super not-so-secret other blog. It’s not a complete rerun. I’ve tweaked it a bit. If you don’t read my other blog, it’s new to you. If you do, it’s partially new to you. See you all next week with brand spankin’ new material. It also...
Low Level Lasers: N-Rays in action.
I do not want to get all angsty and omphaloskeptic, but I have been thinking more of late about the purpose of the blog and my role in it. Blogs,and the people who write them, are ephemeral. It takes a unique personality and commitment to churn out these essays and commit them to the ether. Especially since Michelson and Morley. I have never...