Is Homeopathy Unethical?
“A gentle ethical defence of homeopathy” by Levy et al. was recently published in an ethics journal. A full-text preprint is available online. They say: Utilitarian critiques of homeopathy that are founded on unsophisticated notions of evidence, that adopt narrow perspectives on healthcare assessment, and that overstate the personal, social and ontological harms of homeopathy, add little to our understanding of the...
Medical marijuana as the new herbalism, part 4: Cannabis for autism
Medical marijuana. It’s promoted as a seeming panacea that can cure whatever ails you. While there are potentially useful medicinal compounds in marijuana, in general the medical marijuana movement vastly oversells the promise. Nowhere is this more true than for cancer and autism, where there is no compelling evidence that cannabis cures cancer. Worse, parents are subjecting autistic children to cannabis with...
Neck Adjustment for Newborn Supraventricular Tachycardia: More Chiropractic Manipulation of Reality…..
[Editor’s note: Not enough Clay for one day? Check out this post on homeopathy over at The Scientific Parent!] It was recently brought to my attention that a chiropractor was promoting his profession on Facebook by claiming to have treated and cured a potentially life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia. The condition in question, supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), can be very serious and even deadly in...
Rehydrating with an appeal to nature
I don’t tend to worry too much about hydration, except when I exercise. I’ve been running regularly for over 15 years, and since I started I’ve usually carried water, or for longer runs, I drink old-school Gatorade. The formulation is basic: sugar, salt, and potassium. There are hundreds of electrolyte products marketed for athletics, but I’ve been faithful to the original: It’s...
Placebo by Conditioning
Truly understanding placebo effects (note the plural) is critical to science-based medicine. Misconceptions about placebo effects are perhaps the common problem I encounter among otherwise-scientific professionals and science communicators. The persistence of these misconceptions is due partly to the fact that false beliefs about placebos, namely that “the” placebo effect is mainly an expectation mind-over-matter effect, is deeply embedded in the culture....
ASEA, ORMUS, and Alchemy
I got an e-mail from a woman who had read my article on ASEA, a multilevel marketing diet supplement that I characterized as an expensive way to buy water. She had not tried ASEA products but was applying for a position as an accountant with the company, and she chastised me for not doing my due diligence and researching the new science...
Bastions of quackademic medicine: Georgetown University
We frequently discuss a disturbing phenomenon known as quackademic medicine. Basically, quackademic medicine is a phenomenon that has taken hold over the last two decades in medical academia in which once ostensibly science-based medical schools and academic medical centers embrace quackery. This embrace was once called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) but among quackademics the preferred term is now “integrative medicine.” Of...
Naturopathic Medical Magic in the NW
As regular readers know, I live in the great Pacific Northwest, specifically Portland, Oregon. I am at home in the organic/hippy/environmental mind-set. It is what I grew up with. It is a relaxed, informal place to live. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that formal attire is tucking your tee shirt into your jeans. At least the metro area,...
The evolving story of the harms of anti-inflammatory drugs
Owing to summer vacation, today’s post updates a 2011 post and a 2013 post with some new information. Anti-inflammatory drugs are among the most well-loved products in the modern medicine cabinet. They can provide good pain control, reduce inflammation, and eliminate fever. We give non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in infancy, continuing through childhood and then adulthood for the aches and pains of...
Galvanic Skin Response Pseudoscience
Selling snake oil is all about marketing, which means that a good snake oil product needs to have a great angle or a hook. Popular snake oil hooks include being “natural,” the product of ancient wisdom, or “holistic.” Perhaps my favorite snake oil marketing ploy, however, is claiming the product represents the latest cutting-edge technology. This invariably leads to humorous sciencey technobabble....
Health Narratives on Social Media