Results for: Right to try
Anti-vaccine propaganda from Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News
I’m not infrequently asked why the myth that vaccines cause autism and other anti-vaccine myths are so stubbornly resistant to the science that time and time again fails to support them. Certainly useful celebrity idiots like Jenny McCarthy are one reason. So, too, are anti-vaccine propaganda websites and blogs such as Age of Autism and anti-vaccine organizations like Generation Rescue, the National...
The Hazards of “CAM”-Pandering
Steven Salzberg, a friend of this blog and Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, is on the editorial boards of three of the many journals published by BioMed Central (BMC), an important source of open-access, peer-reviewed biomedical reports. He is disturbed by the presence of two other journals under the BMC umbrella: Chinese Medicine...
Acupuncture Revisited
Believers in acupuncture claim it is supported by plenty of published scientific evidence. Critics disagree. Thousands of acupuncture studies have been done over the last several decades, with conflicting results. Even systematic reviews have disagreed with each other. The time had come to re-visit the entire body of acupuncture research and try to make sense out of it all. The indefatigable CAM...
Asian Bear Bile Remedies: Traditional Medicine or Barbarism?
Imagine living 20 years spending 24 hours a day in a cage that tightly fits your body, not giving you room to stand up, stretch out, turn around, or move at all. Imagine that twice a day during these years you would have a metal catheter inserted into a hole which has been cut into your abdomen, allowing the catheter to easily...
Ann Coulter says: Radiation is good for you!
In her eagerness to convince everyone that radiation leakage from the Fukushima reactor damaged by the recent tsunami poses no threat, Ann Coulter turns the concept of hormesis on its head and tries to argue that a little extra ionizing radiation is good for you. Ann Coulter being Ann Coulter, she has no clue what she is talking about, but can spin...
How to Interrogate an Herbal Medicine: Thunder God Vine
Thunder god vine may not be a useful herbal medicine but the compounds isolated from it are fascinating – if not as medicines, then most certainly as laboratory tools. Nature Chemical Biology recently published an article where a research team from Johns Hopkins, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Drew University in New Jersey, has determined the molecular mechanism of action...
Dr. Oz and John Edward: Just when I thought Dr. Oz couldn’t go any lower, he proves me wrong
We at SBM had thought Dr. Oz couldn't go any lower, but this week he proved us wrong. This Tuesday, Dr. Oz featured "psychic medium" scammer John Edward on his show and claimed that such psychic mediums can help people deal with their grief over the loss of a loved one.
Help – My Doctor is a Crank!
I often receive e-mail from SBM readers (or SGU listeners) who have had the experience of their doctor, nurse, dentist, physical therapist, or other health care provider recommending to them a treatment option that seems dubious, if not outright pseudoscientific. They want advice on what to do. There are common themes to the e-mails – the writer often feels very uncomfortable in...
A University of Michigan Medical School alumnus confronts anthroposophic medicine at his alma mater
Anthroposophic medicine is the creation of Rudolf Steiner, who also founded Waldorf Schools. It's a form of medicine that is vitalistic and full of quackery. Unfortunately, my medical alma mater, the University of Michigan, has a program in anthroposophic medicine. It's a small program, but that it exists at all is a disturbing reminder how quackery can infiltrate even the best medical...
Triskaidekaphobia times two.
There is germaphobia, the fear of germs. Or Germans. One of the two. Oddly, I do not fear most germs, despite my daily reminders as to how destructive these wee beasties can be. I recognize their limits and my immunologic strengths and know I have more to fear from cars or unsaturated fats than E. coli or influenza. There is also a...