Results for: Burzynski
Stem cells versus Gordie Howe’s stroke, part 2
Another Christmas has come and gone, surprisingly fast, as always. I had thought that it might make a good “last of 2014” post—well, last of 2014 for me, anyway; Harriet and Steve, at least, will be posting before 2014 ends—to do an end of year list of the best and worst of the year. Unfortunately, there remains a pressing issue that doesn’t...
Selling “integrative oncology” as a monograph in JNCI
The Society of Integrative Oncology publishes its "evidence-based" guidelines for the supportive care of breast cancer patients, along with a whole lot of musings on integrating quackery with medicine. But are the guidelines science-based? I think you know the answer to that one.
Using the fear of Ebola to promote the placebo legislation that is “right to try”
Libertarians and free market fundamentalists generally detest the FDA and want to dramatically decrease its power in the belief that the free market can guarantee the safety of drugs better than a government agency that requires strong scientific evidence of efficacy and safety before approval. Not surprisingly, they're at it again, this time in the service of promoting "right-to-try" laws and using...
“Quackery: A $10 Billion Scandal”
Who would you guess authored a 250-page report which begins with this Preface? This report marks the culmination of an intensive four-year review of quackery and its impact on the elderly. . . As this report details, quackery has traveled far from the day of the pitchman and covered wagon to emerge as big business. Those who orchestrate and profit from the...
An Overly Pessimistic View of Medicine
Sandeep Jauhar wrote Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician to express his frustration with the modern system of medical care in America. I found the book profoundly disturbing. If his experience is representative, I can understand why so many people have been criticizing doctors for only caring about money. His experience was so different from mine that I wondered if I...
Yahoo News spews NaturalNews anti-vaccine (and other) propaganda
Yahoo News appears to have confused NaturalNews with actual news. It’s not. NaturalNews is the in-house propaganda organ for Mike Adams, whom I’ll introduce in a minute (although he needs no introduction for most readers here). A couple of recent examples: A recycled story, over a year old, from NaturalNews, appearing on Yahoo News last week. It starts out as...
Quackademia update: The Cleveland Clinic, George Washington University, and the continued infiltration of quackery into medical academia
Quackery has been steadily infiltrating academic medicine for at least two decades now in the form of what was once called “complementary and alternative medicine” but is now more commonly referred to as “integrative medicine.” Of course, as I’ve written many times before, what “integrative medicine” really means is the “integration” of quackery with science- and evidence-based medicine, to the detriment of...
Medicine past, present, and future: Star Trek versus Dr. Kildare and The Knick
I love the new Cinemax series The Knick, which is set in 1900 and portrays a brilliant maverick surgeon named Dr. John Thackery on the cutting edge of medicine at the time. I also love Star Trek's Dr. "Bones" McCoy and have recently come to like the old radio show featuring Dr. Kildare. Looking at how the three shows portray medicine in...
“Atavistic oncology” revisited: Dr. Frank Arguello responds
Three weeks ago, I wrote about a cancer treatment promoted by Dr. Frank Arguello that I deemed to be quackery, launching into one of my usual discussions based in science (and with a touch of snark) regarding why. Dr. Arguello, it appears, is not very happy about what I wrote. So he responded. He also sent e-mails complaining to my cancer center...
Medical marijuana as the new herbalism, part 2: Cannabis does not cure cancer
Medical marijuana. It’s promoted as a seeming panacea that can cure whatever ails you. In particular, it's touted, primarily in the form of cannabis oil extract, as a cure for cancer that "they" don't want you to know about. While there are potentially useful medicinal compounds in marijuana, in general the medical marijuana movement vastly oversells the promise. While some cannabinoids do...