Results for: cancer screening
Obamacare, the Oregon Experiment, and Medicaid
Tomorrow, as mandated by the Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act (PPACA, often called just the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, or “Obamacare”), the government-maintained health insurance exchanges will open for business (that is, assuming the likely government shutdown doesn’t stop them temporarily). We here at SBM have written about the ACA quite a few times, but I would like to...
Preventing autism? Not so fast, Dr. Mumper…
Dug the Dog strikes again, as he did three weeks ago. I had a couple of ideas for a post this week, but none of them were time-sensitive or timely. Then, over the weekend, I saw a post on the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism by Dan “Where are the Autistic Amish” Olmsted entitled Weekly Wrap: Another Medical Practice with a...
A favorite tactic of the antivaccine movement: When science doesn’t support you, use the law
As I’ve joked about before, I’m a bit like Dug the Dog from the movie Up whenever a squirrel goes by. In other words, I’m easily distracted by things that interest my primal urge to chase pseudoscience. I originally had a cancer-related topic in mind for this week’s foray into science-based medicine, but then on Friday our favorite group of antivaccine activists...
The difference between science-based medicine and CAM
There is a huge difference between science-based medicine (SBM) and so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or, as it's increasingly called, "integrative medicine." That difference is that SBM changes with new science. The change might be messier and slower than we would like, but eventually science and evidence win out.
The Business of Baby and the Monkey Business of Margulis
A correspondent asked for my opinion of a new book by journalist Jennifer Margulis that is apparently getting a lot of attention in some circles: The Business of Baby: What Doctors Don’t Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Before Their Bottom Line. I got a copy from the library and read it....
Medicine
Coming Soon This page is under construction. We’re reviving this project over the summer of 2013. Please check back later this year. Meanwhile, see the index for reference page index that are more developed. Topic Editor: Sections: Topic Overview Index of SBM Posts Outside Resources Summary of Key Research Topic Overview Index of SBM Posts Cell phones and cancer again,...
BBC Panorama investigates Stanislaw Burzynski
Last week, I reviewed a long-expected (and, to some extent, long-dreaded) documentary by Eric Merola, a filmmaker whose talent is inversely proportional to his yen for conspiracy, pseudoscience, and quackery. Through a quirk of fate that couldn’t have worked out better if I had planned it myself, a long-expected investigation of the Burzynski Clinic by the BBC aired on its venerable news...
Stanislaw Burzynski: A deceptive propaganda movie versus an upcoming news report
Well, I’ve finally seen it, and it was even worse than I had feared. After having heard of Eric Merola’s plan to make a sequel to his 2010 propaganda “documentary” about Stanislaw Burzynski, Burzynski The Movie: Cancer Is Serious Business, which I labeled a bad movie, bad medicine, and bad PR, I’ve finally actually seen the finished product, such as it is....
The final nail in the coffin for the antivaccine rallying cry “Too many too soon”?
There are some weeks when I know what my topic will be—what it must be. These are weeks in which the universe gives the very appearance of handing to me my topic for the week on the proverbial silver platter with a giant hand descending from the clouds, pointing at it, and saying, “Blog about this, you idiot!” Usually, it’s because a...
Three myths about Stanislaw Burzynski and The Skeptics
As I finished last week’s post, I promised myself that I wouldn’t write about Stanislaw Burzynski again this week. After all, counting this post I will have done 13 posts so far in 2013, and, counting this one, four of them will have been about Burzynski, and three out of the last five posts (three out of four, really, if we eliminate...