Category: Science and the Media

When what to my wondering eyes should appear….

…but an actual pro-science post at The Huffington Post in which the blogger, Jacob Dickerman, actually correctly describes why homeopathy is quackery! For instance: Homeopaths will tell us that water has a memory. That it vibrates in a certain way and thus knows exactly what the homeopath put into it. The thing is, if Hahnemann is somehow right about homeopathy, then it...

/ May 5, 2009

Chiropractic in the News

Three recent news items about chiropractic have particularly irritated me. (1) U.S. Army Brigadier General Becky Halstead (Retired) Speaks Out for Chiropractic Care (2) Chiropractic Helps Child with Brain Disorder (3) Swine Flu Chiropractor’s Handout (1) General Halstead has become a spokesperson for The Foundation for Chiropractic Progress, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness of chiropractic. Her quoted comments boil...

/ May 5, 2009

Threats to science-based medicine: Big pharma pays a publisher to produce a fake journal

It’s times like these when I’m happy that I haven’t published in too many Elsevier Journals during the course of my career. Actually, I’m not sure if I’ve ever published in an Elsevier journal, although I have reviewed manuscripts for them. In any case, I say that because on Thursday, it was revealed that pharmaceutical company Merck, Sharp & Dohme paid Elsevier...

/ May 5, 2009

The Huffington Post‘s War on Medical Science: A Brief History

I realize that our fearless leader Steve Novella has already written about this topic twice. He has, as usual, done a bang-up job of describing how Arianna Huffington’s political news blog has become a haven for quackery, even going so far as to entitle his followup post The Huffington Post’s War on Science. And he’s absolutely right. The Huffington Post has waged...

/ May 4, 2009

Toxin Obsession: Celebrities & Shampoo

This week I thought you all might enjoy a reprint of a humorous post from Better Health. Dr. Rob Lamberts explores the curious obsession that some Hollywood celebrities have with “toxins.” Sometimes laughter is the best medicine: *** Somehow the medical community has missed a very important news Item.  In her website goop.com (dang, I was going to go for that domain),...

/ April 30, 2009

The Huffington Post’s War On Science

It is unfortunately a common human reaction to respond to criticism by attacking those leveling the criticism, rather than addressing the points being made. This is especially true if the criticism is legitimate and one cannot reasonably counter it. Substantive criticism is also a central part of the scientific endeavor, and so the culture of science has developed a tolerance for harsh...

/ April 29, 2009

14 Studies Later*

First off, I have deliberately not read the entries on Fourteen Studies by fellow bloggers on SBM. I wanted to go through the information on the site myself. So if some of the information is repetitive, sorry. Second, in the interest of openness and transparency, I will state my conflicts of interest up front: none. I have not talked to a drug...

/ April 24, 2009

J.B. Handley, Generation Rescue, and attacks on critics

I am writing this because a colleague of mine has been attacked, specifically, our fearless leader Steve Novella. J.B. Handley, Founder of “Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey’s Autism Organization – Generation Rescue” (whose usurpation by Jenny and Jim was apparently done in an opportunistic fashion but has had a consequence that must be galling to J.B., namely that some interviewers apparently think...

/ April 23, 2009

Pseudoscience In Medical News at the Huffington Post

As many have pointed out, we are in the midst of a transformation in the way news is created, distributed, and monetized – all brought on by the internet. Access to information has dramatically increased, while the traditional news outlets are fading away. The new internet-based outlets that are cropping up are often hybrids that do not fit into any existing definition....

/ April 22, 2009

Harvard Medical School: Veritas for Sale (Part V)

September 26, 2002 Kimball Atwood, M.D. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dear Kim, I have now had time to look into the allegations in your letter of June 14th which, incidentally, I shared with Dr. David Eisenberg and he with several others. I have sought consultation about our exchanges and the gist of my response follows. Some of your concerns and allegations are very helpful and...

/ April 17, 2009