Category: Science and Medicine
Open-Access Peer Review: Increasing the Noise To Signal Ratio
Readers of Science Based Medicine are quite familiar with the distressingly common logical leap made by disgruntled healthcare consumers into alternative medicine. It goes something like this: I had a terrible experience with a doctor who [ignored/patronized/misdiagnosed] me and I also heard something horrible in the media about a pharmaceutical company’s misbehavior [hiding negative results/overstating efficacy/overcharging for medications], therefore alternative treatments [homeopathy/acupuncture/energy...
The science of purging, or the purging of science?
It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S., one of my favorite holidays. Thanksgiving habits get set down early in life, and the while I may find your lima bean casserole execrable, to you it’s just not Thanksgiving without it. And speaking of excrement, you can expect to see adds encouraging you to “detox” from all of your holiday excesses. Outside the field of substance...
Bee Venom Therapy – Grassroots Medicine
Pat Wagner (or “The Bee Lady,” as she likes to be called) treats herself for multiple sclerosis (MS) by allowing bees to sting her. She calls this bee-venom therapy (BVT) and believes it has saved her from MS. There are now thousands of people who administer BVT to themselves or others, mostly in private homes by unlicensed practitioners. BVT is not prescribed...
NCCAM: the not-even-wrong agency
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is a government agency tasked with (among other things), “[exploring] complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science.” In this space we have talked about NCCAM quite a bit, but I have to admit that I don’t think about them very much. The other day, though, I was reading though...
Health Care Freedom
Freedom is a cherished commodity in our culture, as it should be. Our laws are largely based upon the premise that individuals should have the liberty to do what they want, unless there is a compelling public or governmental concern that overrides such liberties. It is therefore no surprise that freedom is a common marketing theme – selling the idea of individuality...
“Integrative Medicine Experts”: Another Barrier to Effective Discipline
This is the final entry in the current series having to do with state regulation of physicians.† It is the final one merely because I’m tired of the topic, for now. There is plenty more to write about, including an event that occurred only yesterday right here at my own hospital. I’ll give a preview of that at the end of this post, but first we’ll look...
Does alternative medicine have alternative ethics?
Kimball Atwood has an interesting series of posts on the ethics of alternative medicine which I strongly encourage you to read. He does a great job examining the ethical implications of certain alternative medicine practices, and has a terrific dialog with Peter Moran, a frequent commenter here. At my other online locale, I make frequent forays into the morass of medical...
“It’s just a theory”
I am afraid that the experiments you quote, M. Pasteur, will turn against you. The world into which you wish to take us is really too fantastic. La Presse, 1860 It’s just a theory. Not evolution. Germ theory. Just a theory, one of many that account for the etiology of diseases. I should mention my bias up front. I am, as some...
Breast cancer and migraines–what is risk, anyway?
One of the questions most often asked in the medical literature is “what is the risk of x?” It’s a pretty important question. I’d like to be able to tell my patient with high blood pressure what their risk of heart attack is, both with and without treatment. And risk is a sexy topic—the press loves it. Whether it’s cell phones and...
Why we don’t prescribe bark for cancer
My valued colleague, Dr. Antonio Baines, recently invited me to speak for his graduate course in Toxicology. Dr. Baines’ course is one of the most highly-regarded graduate classes at North Carolina Central University for M.S. students in Biology and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Antonio asked that I discuss the pharmacology and toxicology of herbal and non-botanical dietary supplements but pretty much gave me free...