Category: Politics and Regulation
The adverse health effects of the lunacy that is Daylight Saving Time
Daylight Saving Time has been around for over 100 years. Why does it still persist when there's little or no evidence that it does what it was intended to do (save energy) and growing evidence of adverse health effects related to the twice a year time change? That's a good question. It's time to get rid of this antiquated practice.
Texas: Ground zero for the politicization of school vaccine mandates
Vaccine policies and school vaccine mandates have traditionally been as close to a nonpartisan issue as there can be in the US. Unfortunately, in Texas antivaccine activists and conservative activists threaten to change that. The antivaccine group Texans for Vaccine Choice has formed an unholy alliance with antiregulation conservative activists to attack school vaccine mandates. Antivaxers all over the country are doing...
Congress can easily end Medicare waste, fraud and abuse by chiropractors, saving billions
Yet another government report finds chiropractors are bilking Medicare billions for unnecessary services. A simple amendment to the Medicare law could end this, but will Congress act?
Are we all contaminated with chemical toxins?
Are we all being gradually poisoned by environmental toxins? And what is the evidence for detoxification kits and cleanses?
The effort of integrative medicine advocates to co-opt the opioid crisis to claim non pharmacological treatments for pain as solely theirs continues apace
Last week, I wrote about how advocates for quackery were trying, and succeeding, at persuading state Medicaid agencies to pay for acupuncture for pain. This week, I discuss how they are promoting the integration of quackery with medicine. In this case, they are promoting a white paper and trying to influence the AHRQ.
“Integrative medicine” advocates: Co-opting the opioid crisis to promote funding for acupuncture by Medicaid
The opioid epidemic is a serious public health crisis in the U.S., and new tools and treatments to deal with chronic pain are urgently needed. Unfortunately, where public health officials see a crisis, advocates of "integrating" quackery with science-based medicine see an opportunity. In this case, promoters of pseudomedicine are taking advantage of the opioid crisis to persuade state Medicaid systems to...
Legislative Alchemy 2017: Acupuncture
Acupuncture is nothing more than a theatrical placebo. Yet acupuncturists, defined as primary care practitioners in some states, are succeeding in licensing and practice expansion efforts in state legislatures.
The final push to pass a federal version of the cruel sham of “right-to-try” is under way
Right-to-try laws are a cruel sham that claim to help terminally ill patients by providing them with earlier access to experimental therapeutics, even though they do very little in this regard. Promoted primarily by the libertarian think tank the Goldwater Institute, in reality they are a strategy to weaken the FDA's regulatory power to assure that marketed drugs are safe and effective....
Medical Marijuana: Where is the evidence?
Marijuana is widely touted as an effective medicine for an array of conditions. But what does the evidence actually tell us?
Legislative Alchemy 2017: Chiropractic
Chiropractors are promoting themselves as primary care physicians. Some state legislatures are falling for it.