The result of the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT): As underwhelming as expected
Chelation therapy. It’s one of the most common quackeries out there, used by a wide variety of practitioners for a wide variety of ailments blamed on “heavy metal toxicity.” Chelation therapy, which involves using chemicals that can bind to the metal ions and allow them to be excreted by the kidneys, is actually standard therapy for certain types of acute heavy metal...
The Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy: Equivocal as Predicted
The ill-advised, NIH-sponsored Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) is finally over. 839 human subjects were randomized to receive Na2EDTA infusions; 869 were randomized to receive placebo infusions. The results were announced at this weekend’s American Heart Association meeting in Los Angeles. In summary, the TACT authors report a slight advantage for chelation over placebo in the “primary composite endpoint,” a combination...
The Light Fantastical. Ultra Violet Blood Irradiation.
What would you do if your swimming pool was dirty? Clean it of course. But how? Would you take out a few pails of water, treat the water in the buckets, then toss the water back into the pool and declare the pool clean? And if it were the bathroom that needed cleaning, would you clean it by treating a few bucket...
CAM and Creationism: Separated at Birth?
Over the past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend CSICon in Nashville, Tennessee. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (“CSI”) combats all sorts of pseudoscience, including creationism/creation science/intelligent design and alternative/complementary/integrative medicine. Our own Team SBM was ably represented by Harriet Hall, David Gorski and Kimball Atwood, whose presentation highlighted the credulous acceptance of CAM in some medical schools, and by Steve...
Cyborg Therapeutics
It appears that we are near the beginning of a new modality in medicine – the use of computer controlled and powered robotics for therapeutic purposes. At present such technology is in its infancy, but is giving us a glimpse of what it will become. Recently Vanderbilt University announced that its team at the Center for Intelligent Mechatronics has developed an exoskeleton...
Andrew Weil/AAFP Article Rejected by Slate
I was asked to write an article for Slate, the on-line magazine, about Andrew Weil’s selection as the keynote speaker for the 2012 AAFP annual scientific assembly. The science and health editor, Laura Helmuth, was initially enthusiastic about what I wrote, but eventually decided not to publish it. Here is the initial draft of my article. My comments follow. Original Draft of...
NIH funds training in behavioral intervention to slow progression of cancer by improving the immune system
Editor’s note: Because of Dr. Gorski’s appearance at CSICon over the weekend, he will be taking this Monday off. Fortunately, Dr. Coyne will more than ably substitute. Enjoy! NIH is funding free training in the delivery of the Cancer to Health (C2H) intervention package, billed as “the first evidence-based behavioral intervention designed to patients newly diagnosed with cancer that is...
Following the Guidelines of Science: A Chiropractic Dilemma
Preamble: When my book Bonesetting, Chiropractic, and Cultism [full text] was published in 1963, renouncing chiropractic vertebral subluxation theory and recommending that chiropractic be developed as a subspecialty of medicine in the treatment of mechanical-type back pain, the chiropractic profession refused to acknowledge or review the book. I was labeled “an enemy of chiropractic.” If it had not been for the support...
Weak drug regulation and patient tragedies: We’ve seen this story before
Plenty of new drugs, but few that are truly innovative. Growing costs from their use. Physicians deemed “Dupes of Big Pharma” for their interactions with the pharmaceutical industry. A call to produce better information on which drugs work best. Finally, shoddy drug manufacturing is injuring and even killing patients. These stories could be lifted from today’s headlines — but they’re actually from...
The Placebo Gene?
A study recently published in PLOS one (Catechol-O-Methyltransferase val158met Polymorphism Predicts Placebo Effect in Irritable Bowel Syndrome) purports to have found a gene variant that correlates strongly with a placebo response in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The study is small and preliminary, but the results are interesting and do raise important questions about placebo responses. Researchers are increasingly trying to tease apart...