Results for: CAM
Itching and the Imaginary Passenger Brake
The press and government agencies ally to shine a disproportionate amount of publicity on false and improbable medical ideas. (Danger: Congressmen and reporters at work.) The latest was a press release from either the Centers for Disease Control (and prevention? – I’ll get to the “prevention” part later,) or from Kaiser-Permanente Medical Group. Three Bay Area newspapers carried simultaneous articles. The articles...
The Ethics of Deception in Medicine
A recent study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and featured in a Time Magazine article, indicated that of 466 academic physicians in the Chicago area, 45% indicated that they have prescribed a placebo for a patient. This has sparked a discussion of the ethics of prescribing placebos in particular and deception in general in medicine. A placebo is a...
Akavar 20/50 and Truth in Advertising
Over the last few months, I have had a truly surreal experience. It started when I noticed a two-page full color spread in TV Guide magazine advertising a product called Akavar 20/50. It contained the same claims that so many bogus weight loss products do: eat all you want and still lose weight. What attracted my interest was their highlighted statement: “We...
Homeopathy and Evidence-Based Medicine: Back to the Future–Part III
“Symptoms,” Continued Part II of this blog† introduced the homeopathic understanding of “symptoms” as they pertain both to “provings” in healthy subjects (now called “homeopathic pathogenic trials” or “HPTs”) and to histories elicited from patients. Hahnemann conflated “symptoms” and every random itch, ache, pain, sniffle, feeling, thought, dream, pimple or other sign, and anything else that might occur to a subject or...
Collision of Incompatibles
Last week’s post was about a recent (October 2007) meeting held at Harvard University on the subject of fascia. The purposes for commenting were several. First, the organizers were partial believers in some forms of “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” (“CAM”), now being called “Integrative” but more realistically called sectarian or anomalous, aberrant medicine. The meeting is another in a long series of...
Dr. Judah Folkman (1933-2008): The epitome of what a science-based physician should be
The name of this blog is Science-Based Medicine. The reason it is so called is because we, the bloggers who will be contributing, believe that “the best method for determining which interventions and health products are safe and effective is, without question, good science.” Sadly, one of the people who best represented this very sort of philosophy, Dr. Judah Folkman (1933-2008), has...
No-Touch Chiropractic
Some time ago, I learned that a Seattle chiropractor, Johanna Hoeller, had been featured on a local TV newsmagazine show. She was so proud of the segment that she had it posted on her web page for all to see. Unfortunately it is no longer there, so I’ll have to tell you what it showed. She demonstrated her techniques on-camera. She put...
On the nature of “alternative” medicine cancer cure testimonials
No doubt you’ve come across them before, either on the Internet, printed advertisements, or radio and TV ads: Alternative medicine cancer “testimonials.” They are the primary means by which “alternative” therapies for cancer (or just about any other disease) are promoted and the primary “evidence” that is used to “prove” the efficacy of non-evidence-based therapies. There’s no doubt that they sure can...
Homeopathy and Evidence-Based Medicine: Back to the Future – Part II
Part I of this blog† summarized the origin of homeopathy, invented in 1790 by Samuel Christian Hahnemann. It discussed Hahnemann’s first two “homœopathic laws of nature,” similia similibus curantur (like cures like) and the “law of infinitesimals,” and showed that his rationales for each have long been refuted. Hahnemann proclaimed a third doctrine, the “law of psora” [“itch”], said by him to...
A Meeting of Incompatibles
On October 3,4, 2007, a conference at Harvard University School of medicine, the first annual “Fascia Research Conference“ was held, sponsored by a notable group of organizations. Organized by Thomas Findley, MD, Phd, Prof. of Physical Medicine and physiatrist at Veterans Administration Hospital East Orange, New Jersey. It was notable for several reasons, and is of interest to medical objectivists – also...