Category: Health Fraud
Health Care Bills: More Mischief in Washington
Forgive the departure from my usual verbosity. I’m on my way to a meeting, and I don’t have the time. Today I’ll report disturbing content found in health care bills that are competing for passage in Washington. Thanks to Linda Rosa for keeping our attention on language in one of the Senate bills: “S.1679 – Affordable Health Choices Act,” sponsored by (guess...
The “Iron Rule of Cancer”: The dangerous cancer quackery that is the “German New Medicine”
Given that I trained as a cancer surgeon, do laboratory and translational cancer research, and spend my clinical time taking care of breast cancer patients, not surprisingly one topic that gets me the most irritated and provokes a lot of my verbiage for SBM is cancer quackery. As I was perusing my list of posts the other day, it occurred to me...
The price of anti-vaccine fanaticism: Case histories
One of the major themes of SBM has been to combat one flavor of anti-SBM movement that believes, despite all the evidence otherwise, that vaccines cause autism and that autism can be reversed with all sorts of “biomedical” quackery. Many (but by no means all) of these so-called “biomedical” treatments are based on the false view that vaccines somehow caused autism. I...
Bill Maher endorses cancer quackery
Over the last five years or so, I’ve often asked, “Is Bill Maher really that ignorant?” I’ve come to the conclusion that he is, and a couple of weeks ago laid out the evidence why right here on this very blog. (Lately Maher has been issuing Tweets that call people who get flu shots “idiots.”) Indeed, I even included in the post...
“Gonzalez Regimen” for Cancer of the Pancreas: Even Worse than We Thought (Part II: Loose Ends)
Last week I discussed the dismal results of the “Gonzalez Trial” for cancer of the pancreas,* as reported in an article recently posted on the website of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. I promised that this week I’d discuss “troubling information, both stated and unstated [in the report],” and also some ethical issues. More has come to light in the past few...
“Gonzalez Regimen” for Cancer of the Pancreas: Even Worse than We Thought (Part I: Results)
Review One of the more bizarre and unpleasant “CAM” claims, but one taken very seriously at the NIH, at Columbia University, and on Capitol Hill, is the cancer “detoxification” regimen advocated by Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez: Patients receive pancreatic enzymes orally every 4 hours and at meals daily on days 1-16, followed by 5 days of rest. Patients receive magnesium citrate and Papaya...
The price of cancer quackery
I don’t have much to add to this one, as it’s a tragic tale. Shadowfax, a blogging ER doc, relates to us what happens when cancer patients rely on quackery like the Gerson protocol instead of scientific medicine: This was a young woman, barely out of her teens, who presented with a tumor in her distal femur, by the knee. This was...
Sectarian Insertions
I will write occasional posts instead of being on a regular schedule. The reasons: There are more contributors than positions. Newer people to the field have more ambition and belly fire. I have a number of projects and papers to finish in increasingly limited time and decreasing efficiency. So have at it. Meanwhile, some non-random thoughts. I am as concerned with social...
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September 3, 2009
If you’re sick, even the ridiculous can seem sublime
Let’s say you have cancer. And let’s say you’re really, really sick of having cancer. And let’s say that you’re also pretty tired of scans, chemo, radiation, hair loss, nausea. And let’s say you’re not really sick and tired of living, but actually pretty happy to be alive. Finally, let’s say someone says that they can get rid of your cancer, without...
Science versus pseudoscience
I know this one’s been floating around the blogosphere for a while, but it finally made its way to me at a time when I needed something lighthearted and amusing (warning: some profanity and at least one use of the “F” word): Best quotes: “Well, science doesn’t know everything.” Well, science knows it doesn’t know anything, otherwise it would stop … But...