Category: Homeopathy

Risks Associated With Complementary And Alternative Medicine (CAM): A Brief Overview

Having grown up on a dairy farm, I am one of the least likely people to object to the deification of yogurt. However, as a critical thinker, I cannot help but resist the idea (promoted by some health sites) that probiotics are a reasonable alternative to chemotherapy in the treatment of colon cancer. And there are many other equally unhelpful claims being...

/ May 7, 2009

When what to my wondering eyes should appear….

…but an actual pro-science post at The Huffington Post in which the blogger, Jacob Dickerman, actually correctly describes why homeopathy is quackery! For instance: Homeopaths will tell us that water has a memory. That it vibrates in a certain way and thus knows exactly what the homeopath put into it. The thing is, if Hahnemann is somehow right about homeopathy, then it...

/ May 5, 2009

The Huffington Post‘s War on Medical Science: A Brief History

I realize that our fearless leader Steve Novella has already written about this topic twice. He has, as usual, done a bang-up job of describing how Arianna Huffington’s political news blog has become a haven for quackery, even going so far as to entitle his followup post The Huffington Post’s War on Science. And he’s absolutely right. The Huffington Post has waged...

/ May 4, 2009

Homeocracy II

This is the second installment analysis of a three (and now 4) part series of articles on effects of homeopathy on childhood diarrhea. This second installment elaborates on our findings on data from the second clinical trial in Nicaragua. (1) I should first explain the title. In order for homeopathy to operate as a base or operating system for medicine “for the 21st...

/ April 30, 2009

Homeocracy

Recent comments on homeopathy again resulted in references to the 1994 Pediatrics paper by Jacobs et al on use of homeopathic remedies for childhood diarrhrea.  The authors of that paper concluded from their blinded study that homeopathic remedies, tailored to the individual infants and children, were effective in reducing the number of diarrhea stools and thus in shortening the illness.  The paper...

/ April 16, 2009

The Dull-Man Law

Kimball Atwood is obviously trying to throw mud at Harvard and at homeopathy, but when you throw mud, you get dirty… (Sigh) So little time, so much misinformation. Hence the Dull-Man Law: In any discussion involving science or medicine, being Dana Ullman loses you the argument immediately…and gets you laughed out of the room. This will be the last time that I...

/ April 10, 2009

This one’s for you, Dana

As you may have noticed, everybody’s “favorite” homeopath, Dana Ullman, has made a return visit to our humble little blog, where he is laying down his usual list of logical fallacies and irrelevencies (such as attacking Oliver Wendell Holmes) in defense of homeopathy. Consequently, now’s as good a time as any to unveil what is perhaps the best ready-for-a-poster criticism of homeopathy...

/ April 10, 2009

Rhinos and tigers and bears. Oh my. TCM and extinctions

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. ~ Woody Allen No good deed goes unpunished. The website whatstheharm.net is a depressing recitation of the harm that humans do to themselves and others from participating in...

/ March 27, 2009

CAM on campus: Homeopathy

I am quite proud of my medical school. The dedicated faculty and dynamic curriculum produce graduates of excellent clinical skill with a strong sense of service. Initially I was too focused on coursework to pay much mind to the student-run interest group in “cross-cultural and integrative medicine” and the occasional extracurricular CAM event. More recently, however, I noticed that such events had...

/ March 1, 2009

University of the Sciences in Philadelphia Justification for Scientific Honor of Homeopathic Leader, John A. Borneman, III

To update readers, I posted last week that my alma mater was to offer a Doctor(ate) of Science degree at our Founders’ Day celebration to Mr. John A. Borneman, III, pharmacist graduate (1952),  founder of the Board Member, Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia Convention of the United States, Southeastern, PA, and Chairman, Standard Homeopathic Company, Bryn Mawr, PA The university, known prior to 1998 as...

/ February 3, 2009