Category: Religion

Naturopathy Embraces the Four Humors

The ancient Greeks posited a system of health and disease based on the four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. According to this system, health is defined as a harmony of these four humors and disease is caused by an imbalance among them. Restore the balance, and health is restored. Bleeding is a familiar example of humoral medical treatment based...

/ December 27, 2012

CAM and Creationism: Separated at Birth?

Over the past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend CSICon in Nashville, Tennessee. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (“CSI”) combats all sorts of pseudoscience, including creationism/creation science/intelligent design and alternative/complementary/integrative medicine. Our own Team SBM was ably represented by Harriet Hall, David Gorski and Kimball Atwood, whose presentation highlighted the credulous acceptance of CAM in some medical schools, and by Steve...

/ November 1, 2012

Does thinking make it so? CAM placebo fantasy versus scientific reality

Last week, I discussed a rather execrable study. Actually, the study itself wasn’t so execrable, at least not in its design, which was a fairly straightforward three-arm randomized clinical trial. Rather it was the interpretation of the study’s results that was execrable. In brief, the authors tested an “energy healing” modality known as “energy chelation” versus a placebo (sham “energy chelation”) and...

/ February 6, 2012

Vaccination mandate exemptions: gimme that ol’ time philosophy

Each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia require vaccination against certain diseases as a prerequisite to public and private school attendance, most commonly polio, mumps, measles, diphtheria, rubella, chicken pox, Heamophilus influenza type b, pertussis, tetanus, pneumococcal disease and hepatitis B. Unfortunately, mandatory vaccination for home-schooled children is rare. (1) All states provide medical exemptions to vaccination mandates for...

/ December 15, 2011

Dr. Oz and John Edward: Just when I thought Dr. Oz couldn’t go any lower, he proves me wrong

We at SBM had thought Dr. Oz couldn't go any lower, but this week he proved us wrong. This Tuesday, Dr. Oz featured "psychic medium" scammer John Edward on his show and claimed that such psychic mediums can help people deal with their grief over the loss of a loved one.

/ March 17, 2011

A University of Michigan Medical School alumnus confronts anthroposophic medicine at his alma mater

Anthroposophic medicine is the creation of Rudolf Steiner, who also founded Waldorf Schools. It's a form of medicine that is vitalistic and full of quackery. Unfortunately, my medical alma mater, the University of Michigan, has a program in anthroposophic medicine. It's a small program, but that it exists at all is a disturbing reminder how quackery can infiltrate even the best medical...

/ March 14, 2011

Dr. Mehmet Oz completes his journey to the Dark Side

A couple of weeks ago, both Steve Novella and I criticized Dr. Mehmet Oz (a.k.a. “America’s doctor”) for not only hosting a man I consider to be a major supporter of quackery, but going far beyond that to defend and promote him. After that, I considered Dr. Oz to be a lost cause, with nothing to excuse him for his having embraced...

/ February 3, 2011

How low can Oprah Winfrey go? Promoting faith healer John of God to the masses

Several of the bloggers on Science-Based Medicine have been — shall we say? — rather critical of Oprah Winfrey. The reason, of course, is quite obvious. Oprah is so famous that if you mention her first name nearly everyone will know exactly of whom you speak. For the last quarter century, her daytime TV talk show has been a ratings juggernaut, leading...

/ November 22, 2010

How do religious-based hospitals affect physician behavior?

Science-based medicine is, among other things, a tool.  Science helps us sequester our biases so that we may better understand reality.  Of course, there is no way to avoid being human; our biases and our intuition still betray us, and when they do, we use other tools.  Ethics help us think through situations using an explicitly-stated set of values that most of...

/ May 6, 2010

Abortion and breast cancer: The manufactroversy that won’t die

Whatever one thinks about abortion from a moral standpoint, we at SBM would argue that any discussion of the risks of abortion should be based in rigorous science. One "risk" of abortion frequently claimed by antiabortion activists is that it causes breast cancer, even if it takes science as bad as that found in a recently published epidemiological "study" on abortion and...

/ January 18, 2010