Should physicians and managed care organizations offer homeopathy?
Anyone who reads Science-Based Medicine on even a semi-regular basis will know our collective opinion of homeopathy. Basically, at its core, homeopathy is pure quackery. I don’t care if it’s repetitive to say this yet again because it can’t be emphasized enough times that homeopathy is The One Quackery To Rule Them All. OK, there are others that compete for that title,...
GcMAF and the life and death of an autism quack
[Editor’s note: This is an extra bonus post that has appeared elsewhere. This week’s post will appear in several hours.] A mysterious apparent suicide and conspiracy theories Three weeks ago, those of us who combat the antivaccine movement noted the then-very recent death of an autism quack and antivaccinationist (but I repeat myself) who’s been big in the “autism biomed” movement for...
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Newborn Nursery: Hepatitis B Vaccine for Newborns
For those of you new to Science-Based Medicine, I am a pediatric hospitalist and spend the majority of my time caring for newborns. It’s an extremely rewarding experience on most days. The babies are usually healthy, the parents are usually happy and appreciative, and I get to give a lot of good news. I also get to dispel a lot of myths...
It’s time for pharmacies to stop selling sugar pills
Why are pharmacies selling sugar pills to consumers that are packaged like medicine? And what will it take for pharmacies to stop?
False Balance for Homeopathy in the BMJ
The BMJ is a prestigious medical journal, which just goes to show that prestigious journals can sometimes make awful decisions. They recently published a pro vs con article on homeopathy. Peter Fisher dragged out the current repertoire of pro-homeopathy tropes, while Edzard Ernst did a fine job of summarizing why homeopathy is nonsense. I also think the article is an excellent example...
How To Listen to Chi
You will need flat shoes and a bottle of vitamins, herbal formula, or prescription medicine. Step 1: Hold the bottle with both hands, touching your chest Step 2: Stand up straight and get your balance Step 3: Close your eyes and feel what is happening to your body. Results: If your body moves forward or stays neutral – going side to side...
The uncertainty surrounding mammography continues
Mammography is a topic that, as a breast surgeon, I can’t get away from. It’s a tool that those of us who treat breast cancer patients have used for over 30 years to detect breast cancer earlier in asymptomatic women and thus decrease their risk of dying of breast cancer through early intervention. We have always known, however, that mammography is an...
Cryotherapy: A Layman’s Attempt to Understand the Science
NOTE: I get a lot of emails asking me whether treatment X is evidence-based or a scam. This one was different. Zachary Hoffman had done his homework and had already answered the question for himself (at least, as well as it could be answered with the existing published evidence). I asked him to write up his findings as a guest post for...
Ethical Failures
It is summer vacation for me in Eastern Oregon at Sunriver. Unbelievable geology, fantastic hikes, great biking, wonderful golf, delicious beer and good food. The thesaurus fails me for superlatives. It is hard to get too riled up about all things SCAM to produce a blog entry when I could be doing one or all of the above. I really...
Nevada’s new quack protection law
Practicing a licensed health care profession, such as medicine, without a license used to be a felony in Nevada. Not any more. As of July 1, quacks and charlatans are free to ply their trades unencumbered by the threat that they might have to answer to the regulatory authorities for their misdeeds, as long as they follow a few simple rules. This...