Category: Science and Medicine
Antivaccine activists fund a study to show vaccines cause autism. It backfires spectacularly.
Having written about pseudoscience and quackery continuously for over a decade and having engaged in conversations about it online for over 15 years, I’ve come to recognize a number of traits that are virtually the sine qua non of quacks and pseudoscientists and their believers. Obviously, one of them is a severe case of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a tendency of those with...
Open vs Blinded Peer-Review
The overall goal of science-based medicine is to maintain and improve the standard of science in the practice of medicine at every level. At the heart of the scientific basis of medical knowledge and practice is a process known as peer-review. We have occasionally written about peer-review on SBM, and once again the process is under the microscope over a specific question...
The Enigma of Chiropractic: A Brief Review with a Perspective on Chiropractic as a Specialty
Much of what is discussed in this article has been said before in previous articles I have written for Science-Based Medicine. But since the audience for SBM has greatly increased over the past few years, some subject matter should be repeated for the new readers and researchers coming to this site for reliable information on health care. Many consumers now search SBM...
A “Natural Cure” for Eczema Leaves a Young Child in Agony…..
A short post today, for me at least, but an important one to file away for the next time somebody asks “What’s the harm?” during a discussion on the use of irregular medicine in the care of pediatric (or any) patients. The case The September 2015 issue of Pediatrics in Review, the official American Academy of Pediatrics source for continuing medical education,...
An aspirin a day to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and cancer?
Taking an aspirin a day has always been controversial when it comes to preventing disease before it occurs. Now a task force is recommending daily use under some circumstances. Do the benefits really outweigh the risks?
Here be Dragons: Caring for Children in a Dangerous Sea of sCAM
As a pediatrician working in a relatively sCAM-inclined region, it is not uncommon to find myself taking care of patients who are also being followed by so-called alternative medicine practitioners. This often creates a major obstacle to providing appropriate care and establishing an atmosphere of mutual trust in the provider-patient/parent relationship. It usually makes me feel like I’m battling invisible serpents in...
Are guidelines for calcium and vitamin D rooted in evidence, or vested interests?
Do osteoporosis guidelines overstate the benefits of calcium and vitamin D supplements? And is their continued presence due to vested interests and conflicts of interest? That’s the provocative argument made by Andrew Grey and Marc Bolland, two endocrinologists who recently detailed their analysis in The BMJ, in a paper entitled “Web of industry, advocacy, and academia in the management of osteoporosis” [PDF]....
The price of a naturopathic education
A naturopathic education is costly with very little financial reward once training is complete - in addition to being unscientific, and possibly dangerous.
(Dys-)Functional Medicine Comes to Dentistry
The great philosopher Deepak Chopra wrote: “I do not believe in meaningless coincidences. I believe every coincidence is a message, a clue about a particular facet of our lives that requires our attention.” So when SBM author extraordinaire Jann Bellamy emailed me last week with an article about so-called “Functional Dentistry” with the comment “Blog fodder?”, I looked it over with interest...
Medical Theater: Vaccines and Ebola
And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing...