Category: Medical Academia
Monkey business in autism research
NOTE: I had originally planned on posting Part II of a series on cancer screening. However, something came up on Friday that, in my estimation, requires a timely response. I should also inform readers that, because next Monday is a holiday here in the U.S., I haven’t yet decided whether I will be doing a post next week or not. Stay tuned...
The Trojan Horses of Education
Last time I described what I could find about the “Quiet Revolution” plan for medicine through the eyes and minds of the Bravewell Collaborative and Christy Mack, wife of the multi-millionaire or billionaire CEO John Mack. The idea seemed two-pronged; “humanize” physicians and medicine generally, and integrate folkway, sectarian and “alternative” methods into the system. What bothered me more, having become inured...
/
May 14, 2008
The Weekly Waluation of the Weasel Words of Woo #5
The Master Speaks It was a delightful surprise for me, and I hope for you fans of the W^5/2, to log onto SBM on Thursday and find this blog by Dr. Wallace Sampson. As I mentioned in that long-ago posting that introduced the topic that eventually hatched the W^5/2, Dr. Sampson is my Yoda, when it comes to the topic that he named: Language Distortions. More about that below....
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part VI)
Part V of this Blog argued that the NCCAM-sponsored trial of the “Gonzalez regimen” for cancer of the pancreas is unethical by numerous criteria.† To provide an illustration, it quoted a case history of one of the trial’s subjects, who had died in 2002.¹ It had been written by the subject’s friend, mathematician Susan Gurney. A similar story was told on ABC 20/20 in 2000, albeit...
Integrative Medicine – Sectarians’ Trojan Horse
Integrative Medicine – Sectarians’ Trojan Horse leapfrogs science (Or, I can misuse language with the best of them…) I stumbled across an article from Archives of Internal Medicine, 2002 (Integrative Medicine: Bringing medicine back to its roots. Arch Intern Med. 2002 Feb 25;162(4):395-7). It is one of the first authored by Andrew Weil on “Integrative Medicine “ – another is BMJ in...
/
May 1, 2008
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part V)
Part IV of this blog ended by observing that the NIH-funded trial of the “Gonzalez regimen” for cancer of the pancreas,† to have begun in March, 1999, was in trouble almost as soon as it started. As originally designed, it was to have been a randomized, controlled trial comparing gemcitabine, the standard chemotherapy, to the “Gonzalez regimen” of pancreatic enzymes, “supplements,” twice-daily coffee enemas, and other purported...
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part IV)
A Review; then Back to the Gonzalez Regimen† Part I of this blog introduced the topic of the “Gonzalez regimen” for treating cancer: “Intensive Pancreatic Proteolytic Enzyme Therapy With Ancillary Nutritional Support” and “detoxification” with twice daily coffee enemas, daily “skin brushing,” “a complete liver flush and a clean sweep and purge on a rotating basis each month,” and more. The topic...
The Weekly Waluation of the Weasel Words of Woo #3
Last Week’s Entry: Everyone’s a Winner! The resounding total of 4 “translations” for the second W^5 entry might have been trying to tell me something…nah! I gotta say that each of the four nailed the central point: the esteemed Institute of Medicine (IOM), a subset of the esteemed National Academy of Sciences, has decided that it’s just fine—no, it is “important” and...
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part II)
Laetrile and the Politics of NIH-Sponsored trials of “Alternative Cancer Treatments” Part I of this blog ended by asking how, in light of the implausible and arduous nature of the “Gonzalez regimen” for cancer of the pancreas, and the unconvincing “best case series,” the NIH could ever have decided to fund a trial of it.† This entry will begin to answer that question. In so...
Charlie Woo TV
Some of us received the announcement a week ago of the Bravewell Collaborative’s planned conference on “Integrative Medicine” co-sponsored with the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine, to take place in February, 2009. (Note: I like to cap slogans and commercial trademarks and such and enclose them in quotation marks. Especially when the terms have no consensus meaning or are intended to obscure...
/
April 3, 2008