Category: History
Smallpox and Pseudomedicine
A good case of smallpox may rid the system of more scrofulous, tubercular, syphilitic and other poisons than could otherwise be eliminated in a lifetime. Therefore, smallpox is certainly to be preferred to vaccination. The one means elimination of chronic disease, the other the making of it. Naturopaths do not believe in artificial immunization . . . —Harry Riley Spitler, Basic Naturopathy:...
The Hazards of “CAM”-Pandering
Steven Salzberg, a friend of this blog and Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, is on the editorial boards of three of the many journals published by BioMed Central (BMC), an important source of open-access, peer-reviewed biomedical reports. He is disturbed by the presence of two other journals under the BMC umbrella: Chinese Medicine...
Old drugs, new tricks
What does honey bee colony collapse disorder have to do with a potential new cancer treatment? They both relate – in a convoluted manner – to an old antibacterial drug called nitroxoline. True to my devotion as a natural product pharmacologist, I’m proud to say that new life would not have come to nitroxoline had not a fungal natural product called fumagillin...
Lest We Forget: Influenza Can Be Devastating
One of our readers suggested that I review the book The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, by John M. Barry. It’s not a new book (it was published in 2004) but it is very pertinent to several of the issues that we have been discussing on this blog, especially in regards to the current anti-vaccine movement....
A New Perspective on the War against Cancer
Myths and misconceptions about cancer abound. Oncologists are frequently criticized for torturing patients by burning, cutting and poisoning without making any real progress in the war against cancer. Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist and cancer researcher, tries to set the record straight with his new book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. It is a unique combination of insightful history,...
Of SBM and EBM Redux. Part II: Is it a Good Idea to test Highly Implausible Health Claims?
Review This is the second post in a series* prompted by an essay by statistician Stephen Simon, who argued that Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is not lacking in the ways that we at Science-Based Medicine have argued. David Gorski responded here, and Prof. Simon responded to Dr. Gorski here. Between that response and the comments following Dr. Gorski’s post it became clear to...
Homeopathy for fibromyalgia: The Huffington Post bombs again
Over the weekend, my wife and I happened to be in the pharmacy section of our local Target store. We happened to be looking for one of our favorite cold remedies, because both of us have been suffering from rather annoying colds, which have plagued both of us for the last week or two. As we perused the Cold and Flu section...
Acupuncture and history: The “ancient” therapy that’s been around for several decades
Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it – A. Hitler It seems that just about every article about acupuncture makes some reference to it having been used in China for thousands of years. The obvious reason for such a statement is to make the implication that since it’s been around for so long,...
Yes, drug companies do pay attention to herbal medicine
I’m only a monthly contributor here but between being a SBM reader and having my own blogs, I often grow weary of the blind criticism that researchers and drug companies couldn’t care less about traditional folk medicines as drug products. My laboratory spends every single day working on natural product extracts in the search for compounds that may have selective effectiveness against...
The FDA for the Average SBM Consumer
How the Food and Drug Administration came to be is a story that is filled with death, intrigue and dubious characters. It also, like most stories, has its share of heroes and vindications. The list of those who have died to bring us the agency we know today is long, but even today, the death-toll continues. Now this is not the horrible...