Results for: clinical trials
Fecal Transplants: Getting To The Bottom Of The Matter
Many Americans will be introducing more food than usual to their GI tracts on this Thanksgiving Day, and so I thought I’d provide you with a special gastroenterology-related post to complement the mood. If you have already eaten, I might suggest that you come back to this post on an empty stomach. I will be discussing the alternative medicine practice known as...
NCCAM: the not-even-wrong agency
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is a government agency tasked with (among other things), “[exploring] complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science.” In this space we have talked about NCCAM quite a bit, but I have to admit that I don’t think about them very much. The other day, though, I was reading though...
How State Medical Boards Shoot Themselves (and You) in the Foot
This is almost the final entry (for now) in a series of posts about the pitfalls of regulating physicians who peddle quackery.† In previous entries we’ve seen how quacks have portrayed an illegal and pseudoscientific treatment, intravenous hydrogen peroxide, as legitimate; how a physician who practiced that and other dubious methods eluded definitive regulatory sanctions for years; examples of quacks banding together to...
When Further Research Is NOT Warranted: The “Wisdom of Crowds” Fallacy
Most scientific research studies have at least one thing in common: the conclusion section ends with, “further research is warranted.” I’d say it’s about as common as the “talk to your doctor” disclaimer in TV ads for pharmaceutical products. And in a way, they both serve the same purpose. They’re a “CYA” move. What does “further research is warranted” mean in plain...
Interpreting the Medical Literature
The science in science-based medicine includes all of science, but relies most heavily on the biomedical literature – published studies that collectively represent our scientific medical knowledge. The scientific basis of medicine is only as good as this body of knowledge and the manner in which it is interpreted and put into practice. We often discuss on this blog how to evaluate...
Dr. Jay Gordon and me: Random encounters with an apologist for the antivaccine movement
Although he doesn’t detest me nearly as much as antivaccine honcho and founder of Generation Rescue J. B. Handley does, Santa Monica celebrity pediatrician Dr. Jay Gordon doesn’t like me very much at all. Actually, I’m not sure whether that’s entirely true or not, but Dr. Gordon sure doesn’t like it when I criticize him for his antivaccine rhetoric. He affects an...
Getting It On with Homeopathy
I have more thoughts on the homeopathy matter than fit in follow-up notes, so here goes. First, David Gorski recalls the 1994 Pediatrics report on childhood diarrhea treated with tailored homeopathic remedies for each patient. There is more to the story than has been written. I am certain much of this will get back to the authors, but others may benefit from...
Pitfalls in Regulating Physicians. Part 1
I had intended today’s posting to be a summary of a real case faced by a state medical board. It is a case of licensed physicians treating patients with a substandard, dangerous, and unequivocally illegal method. My intent was to use it as an illustration of how difficult it can be for medical boards to discipline such practitioners, even when the treatment...
Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster?
Quacks and their apologists often cite surgery and emergency treatments of traumatic injury and a few other catastrophic or potentially catastrophic events as the only “conventional” or “allopathic” methods that they consistently recommend. Explicitly or implicitly, for most problems they tout “holistic” or “CAM” treatments. In modern medicine, however, there are plenty of non-surgical and non-emergency treatments whose outcomes are so manifest that even the most exuberant advocates of implausible medical claims (IMC) seem careful to steer...
The New England Journal of Medicine Disappoints
On July 31 of this year, a collective groan could be heard emanating from critics of pseudomedicine. The causative factors (which is medical bombast for “the cause”) were two book reviews published in the usually staid New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM): Integrative Oncology: Incorporating Complementary Medicine into Conventional Cancer Care Edited by Lorenzo Cohen and Maurie Markman. 216 pp., illustrated. Totowa, NJ, Humana...