Category: Science and Medicine
CAM and the Law Part 2: Licensure and Scope of Practice Laws
This post is intended to illustrate a bit about how medicine, including alternative medicine, is defined and limited legally by state licensure. This is, of course, an enormous topic, especially given the variety of laws and regulations among the 50 states and District of Columbia, and the many, often mutually inconsistent, court decisions interpreting them. A comprehensive survey would resemble Gibbon’s history...
CAM and the Law, Part 1: Introduction to the issues
When I write or talk about the scientific evidence against particular alternative medical approaches, I am frequently asked the question, “So, if it doesn’t work, why is it legal?” Believers in CAM ask this to show that there must be something to what they are promoting or, presumably, the government wouldn’t let them sell it. And skeptics raise the question often out...
Answering a criticism of science-based medicine
Attacks on science-based medicine (SBM) come in many forms. There are the loony forms that we see daily from the anti-vaccine movement, quackery promoters like Mike Adams and Joe Mercola, those who engage in “quackademic medicine,” and postmodernists who view science as “just another narrative,” as valid as any other or even view science- and evidence-based medicine as “microfascism.” Sometimes, these complaints...
Why science reporters should do their homework
One of the most significant medical advancements of the last few decades has been the use of cholesterol-lowering medications called statins. These drugs, when used properly, have been shown over and over to lower the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and death. But like all drugs, they have many effects, both those we like (preventing heart attacks) and those we don’t (in...
Fatigued by a Fake Disease
Are you tired? Is it because your adrenal glands are too? No, probably not.
Blog Discussion with an SBM Critic
Over the last couple of days I have been engaged at NeuroLogica in a discussion with a fellow blogger, Marya Zilberberg who blogs at Healthcare, etc. Since the topic of discussion is science-based medicine I thought it appropriate to reproduce my two posts here, which contain links to her posts. A Post-Modernist Response to Science-Based Medicine I receive frequent commentary on my...
Lies, damned lies, and…science-based medicine?
I realize that in the question-and-answer session after my talk at the Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium a week ago I suggested in response to a man named Leon Maliniak, who monopolized the first part of what was already a too-brief Q&A session by expounding on the supposed genius of Royal Rife, that I would be doing a post about the Rife...
Influenza Vaccine Mandates
I have been involved in infection control and in what is now called quality for my career. Since infection control issues can occur in any department, my job involves being on numerous quality related committees (Medical Executive, Pharmacy and Therapeutics, etc) where I have witnessed or participated in what seems to be innumerable quality initiatives. It always gripes my cookies when someone...
Heart disease: one of science-based medicine’s great successes
Sixty years ago, the world was full of miracles. Western Europe was recovering from the devastation of World War II, an agricultural revolution promised to banish the fear of starvation in large parts of the world, and the mythical Mad Men era gave Americans a taste of technology-dependent peace and prosperity unlike any in the past. Despite the technological progress that would...
The 2010 Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium
I really have to give those guys at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society credit. They’re fast. Remember how I pointed out that I’ve been away at the Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium? This year, the theme was Confronting Pseudoscience: A Call to Action, and I got to share the stage with Michael Shermer, Ben Goldacre, and, of course, our host,...