Category: Medical Ethics
Evidence-Based Medicine, Human Studies Ethics, and the ‘Gonzalez Regimen’: a Disappointing Editorial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology Part 2
NB: If you haven’t yet read Part 1 of this blog, please do so now; Part 2 will not summarize it. … At the end of Part 1, I wrote: We do not need formal statistics or a new, randomized trial with a larger sample size to justify dismissing the Gonzalez regimen. In his editorial for the JCO, Mark Levine made a...
Evidence-Based Medicine, Human Studies Ethics, and the ‘Gonzalez Regimen’: a Disappointing Editorial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology Part 1
Background: the distinction between EBM and SBM An important theme on the Science-Based Medicine blog, and the very reason for its name, has been its emphasis on examining all the evidence—not merely the results of clinical trials—for various claims, particularly for those that are implausible. We’ve discussed the distinction between Science-Based Medicine (SBM) and the more limited Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) several times,...
Ghostwriting As Marketing Tool
An article in the latest issue of PLOS Medicine, The Haunting of Medical Journals: How Ghostwriting Sold “HRT”, details the use of ghostwriting as a marketing tool for pharmaceutical companies. It is a chilling discussion of how at least one pharmaceutical company, Wyeth, used the peer-reviewed literature as a method of distributing marketing messages to physicians. The author, Adriane J. Fugh-Berman, details...
A pox on your bank account: failure to vaccinate and its legal consequences
Here’s a question anti-vaxers may want to consider: Can the parents of an unvaccinated child be held liable if their child becomes infected with a vaccine-preventable disease which then spreads from their child to another child or children? Yes, they can. In fact, for over 125 years, courts in this country have recognized a cause of action for negligent transmission of an...
Open Letter to Dr. Josephine Briggs
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D. Director, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Dear Dr. Briggs, As you know, we’ve met twice. The first time was at the Yale “Integrative Medicine” Symposium in March. The second was in April, when Drs. Novella, Gorski and I met with you for an hour at the NCCAM in Bethesda. At the time I concluded that you...
New CMS Chief Donald Berwick: a Trojan Horse for Quackery?
NB: I posted this on Health Care Renewal a couple of days ago, figuring that Dr. Gorski’s post would suffice for the SBM readership (he and I had discussed the topic while at TAM8 last week). But Managing Editor Gorski has asked me to repost it here, which I’m happy to do. I am especially pleased to demonstrate that I am capable...
Professional Integrity for Sale? “Sure,” Says Medscape!
Some chiropractors also practice homeopathy. According to Frank King, D.C., many more should be doing just that: Homeopathy is an energetic form of natural medicine that corrects nerve interferences, absent nerve reflexes, and pathological nerve response patterns that the chiropractic adjustment alone does not correct. The appropriate homeopathic remedies will eliminate aberrant nerve reflexes and pathological nerve responses which cause recurrent subluxation...
In which Dr. Gorski once again finds himself a target of the “pharma shill” gambit
When quacks can't answer with science (which is most commonly), they fall back on their favorite ad hominem attack. They call their critics "pharma shills." Then they try to silence them by almost any means they view as necessary.
Lying Liars and their Lying Lies
Carlyle said “a lie cannot live.” It shows that he did not know how to tell them. — Mark Twain There is an infamous hoax from last century called The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic text purporting to describe a plan to achieve global domination by the Jewish people. Despite the fact that the Protocols is a work...
Bogus Diagnostic Tests
A few years ago a friend asked me to comment on advice given to her adult daughter by a psychiatrist whom she’d consulted for depression. The psychiatrist had recommended testing samples of saliva and urine for hormone and neurotransmitter levels, the results of which would likely indicate a need for supplements to correct deficiencies or imbalances. According to the psychiatrist, who had...