Results for: Ioannidis
Homeopathy Ramblings
There needs to be a SCAM index, some quantitative tool, a formula for ranking the SCAMs, so one SCAM could reign supreme, to be definitely declared the the goofiest of all SCAMs. Perhaps (number of adherents)x(number of Pubmed publications)x(age of SCAM) all divided by a plausibility factor. Homeopathy would win and any SCAM index that did not rank homeopathy at number one...
Coenzyme Q10 for heart failure: The hype and the science
Could a product sold as a dietary supplement really be delivering the benefits that advocates have claimed for decades? That’s what you might be wondering about coenzyme Q10, following recent stories like: The energy-boosting supplement that could HALVE the number of deaths from heart failure screamed The Daily Mail. It’s Official: Coenzyme Q10 Improves Heart Failure Survival from the “orthomolecular” advocates AOR....
Acupuncture Doesn’t Work
About a year ago the editors of Anesthesia & Analgesia solicited a written debate on whether or not acupuncture is effective or simply an elaborate placebo. Four experienced acupuncture researchers agreed to write the pro-acupuncture article, Wang, Harris, Lin and Gan. They asked David Colquhoun to write the con position, and David asked me to write it with him (which, of course,...
AAFP CME Program Succumbs to “Integrative Medicine”
For many years I have been using Continuing Medical Education (CME) programs offered by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The FP Essentials program consists of a monthly monograph with a post-test that can be submitted electronically for 5 hours of CME credit. Over a 9-year cycle, a complete family medicine curriculum is covered to prepare participants for the re-certification board...
Everything we eat causes cancer…sort of
Red meat causes cancer. No, processed meat causes cancer. OK, it’s both red meat and processed meat. Wait, genetically modified grain causes cancer (well, not really). No, aspartame causes cancer. No, this food coloring or that one causes cancer. Clearly, everything you eat causes cancer! That means you can avoid cancer by avoiding processed meats, red meat, GMO-associated food (no, probably not),...
I Never Meta Analysis I Really Like
David Gorski recently pointed out that Science Based Medicine is going on five years. Amazing. That there would be so much to write about day after day comes as a surprise to me. Somehow I vaguely thought that ‘controversies’ would be resolved. Pick a SCAM, contrast the SCAM with reality as best we understand it, and, once the SCAM was found wanting,...
Low Level Lasers: N-Rays in action.
I do not want to get all angsty and omphaloskeptic, but I have been thinking more of late about the purpose of the blog and my role in it. Blogs,and the people who write them, are ephemeral. It takes a unique personality and commitment to churn out these essays and commit them to the ether. Especially since Michelson and Morley. I have never...
Journal Club
There is a tradition in medical training called Journal Club. The first rule of Journal Club is you do not talk about Journal Club. In Journal Club, at least in the iterations in which I have participated, one article is selected by an attending, everyone reads it, then the strengths, weakness and applicability are discussed by the group. Usually a top notch,...
The Plausibility Problem
From the very outset, the founders of Science Based Medicine have have emphasized the importance of plausibility in the critical evaluation of scientific claims in medicine. What exactly does “plausibility” mean, and how should we apply it in science? My simple definition of plausibility would be “the likelihood that a premise is true.” The application in science is a little more complicated....
More “bait and switch” acupuncture studies
Acupuncture has been a frequent topic on this blog because, of all the “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) modalities out there, it’s arguably the one that most people accept as potentially having some validity. The rationale behind acupuncture is, as we have explained many times before, little different than the rationale behind any “energy healing” method (like reiki, for example) in that...