Results for: chronic lyme
The 2nd Yale Research Symposium on Complementary and Integrative Medicine. Part II
The Main Event: Novella vs. Katz The remainder of the Symposium comprised two panels. The first was what I had come to see: a Moderated Discussion on Evidence and Plausibility in the Context of CAM Research and Clinical Practice, featuring our Founder, Steve Novella, who is also Assistant Professor of Neurology at Yale; and David Katz, the speaker who had borne the...
The General Medical Council to Andrew Wakefield: “The panel is satisfied that your conduct was irresponsible and dishonest”
BACKGROUND In my not-so-humble opinion, the very kindest thing that can be said about Andrew Wakefield is that he is utterly incompetent as a scientist. After all, it’s been proven time and time again that his unethical and scientifically incompetent “study” that was published in The Lancet in 1999 claiming to find a correlation between vaccination with MMR and autistic regression in...
Lose those holiday pounds
Lose weight without diet or exercise? I guess that leaves cancer. –David Letterman. It is the day after Thanksgiving, and I have probably eaten enough calories to support the average family for at least three days. I am hesitant to comment on what my actual weight may be, but others have not been so reticent about discussing my appearance over at RDCT....
The Montagnier “Homeopathy” Study
A recent study is being cited as support for homeopathy. For instance, the Homeopathy World Community website says Luc Montagnier Foundation Proves Homeopathy Works. Dana Ullman cites it in the comments to this blog And I assume that you all have seen the new research by Nobel Prize-winning virologist Luc Montagnier that provides significant support to homeopathy. Nope. Sorry, guys. It doesn’t....
Flu Vaccine Efficacy
I guess I will be spending the rest the flu season writing about the nonsense that is promulgated about the flu vaccine and the disease. One of the more common laments about the flu vaccine is that it doesn’t work: I got the flu vaccine and still got the flu. Well maybe. Maybe not. It takes a few weeks to get protection, so...
Vaccines and the Media: No Room for Balance
© 2009 msnbc.com Matt Lauer and NBC have continued the ignominious media tradition of feigning to bring “balance” to the issue of vaccine safety. In the Dateline episode A Dose of Controversy, which aired on Sunday night, Matt Lauer interviewed Andrew Wakefield, the originator of the MMR-causes-autism myth, and highlighted his work at Thoughtful House, the autism treatment center he created in Texas after...
The Microbial Metagenome
First some background. I was first directed to the Marshall protocol by a reader who wondered about the information the found on the web. So I went to the web and looked at the available information, much as any patient would, and discussed what I found there. I have subsequently been lead to believe that none of the information on the website...
2009: Shaping up to be a really bad year for antivaccinationists
I will begin this post with a bit of an explanation. Between one and two weeks ago, there appeared two momentous news about the manufactroversy regarding vaccines and autism. No doubt, many SBM readers were expecting that I, as the resident maven of this particular bit of pseudoscience, would have been here last week to give you, our readers, the skinny on...
Antivaccine hero Andrew Wakefield: Scientific fraud?
Pity poor Andrew Wakefield. Actually, on second thought, Wakefield deserves no pity at all. After all, he is the man who almost single-handedly launched the scare over the MMR vaccine in Britain when he published his infamous Lancet paper in 1998 in which he claimed to have linked the MMR vaccine to regressive autism and inflammation of the colon, a study that...
Bee Venom Therapy – Grassroots Medicine
Pat Wagner (or “The Bee Lady,” as she likes to be called) treats herself for multiple sclerosis (MS) by allowing bees to sting her. She calls this bee-venom therapy (BVT) and believes it has saved her from MS. There are now thousands of people who administer BVT to themselves or others, mostly in private homes by unlicensed practitioners. BVT is not prescribed...