Results for: naturopathy

CAM and Headaches

A recent editorial entitled “CAM in the Real World: You May Practice Evidence-Based Medicine, But Your Patients Don’t” published in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain by Robert Cowan, a headache specialist, addresses the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the treatment of headaches. Unfortunately he propagates many common misconceptions about CAM in the article. I do agree...

/ September 3, 2014

Tens of millions for CAM research — and it’s all on your dime

The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) was signed on September 26, 2006. The intent is to empower every American with the ability to hold the government accountable for each spending decision. The end result is to reduce wasteful spending in the government. The FFATA legislation requires information on federal awards (federal financial assistance and expenditures) be made available to the...

/ August 21, 2014

Misguided Naturopath Claims To Have Cured Cervical Dysplasia

Naturopath Kate Whimster has written a case study of a patient with cervical dysplasia who was allegedly treated successfully with naturopathic treatment. She says: In many cases conventional treatment can be invasive, ineffective, or can put patients at risk for future complications. Fortunately, there are wonderful naturopathic treatment options available both instead of or in conjunction with conventional medical treatments. This case...

/ August 5, 2014

Is There a Role for the Art of Medicine in Science-Based Practice?

The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. The practice of medicine is an art, based on science. -Sir William Osler, AEQUANIMITAS The truth is that many of us have some kind of “extraordinary gift.” For a few of us, that gift...

/ June 20, 2014

Harkin’s folly, or how forcing insurers to cover CAM undermines the ACA

All of us at SBM have repeatedly expressed frustration at the continuing influx of pseudoscience into the health care system. Judging from comments posted on this site and private communications we receive, our readers share this frustration but are at a loss to figure out how to get through to legislators and other policy makers. Unlike naturopaths and chiropractors, we don’t have...

/ May 29, 2014

Beware the Integrative Pharmacy

Imagine a retail pharmacy where some of the medicines on the shelves have been replaced with similar-looking packages that contain no active ingredients at all. There is no easy way to distinguish between the real and the fake. Another section of the store offers a number of remedies with fantastic claims, such as “boosting” the immune system, “detoxifying” the body, or “cleansing”...

/ May 22, 2014

What’s in a name?: NCCAM tries to polish a turd

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee Take all myself. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2...

/ May 19, 2014

Legislative Alchemy 2014 (so far)

Legislative Alchemy is the process by which credulous state legislators turn practitioners of pseudoscience into state-licensed health care professionals. In addition to unleashing quackery such as homeopathy, colonic irrigation, moxibustion, reiki, cranial sacral therapy and the detection and correction of subluxations on the public, these practice acts typically give chiropractors, naturopaths and acupuncturists the freedom of being governed by their own regulatory...

/ May 15, 2014

Telemedicine: Click and the doctor will see you now

Think you need to see a doctor? How about seeing him (or her) on your computer (or tablet or smart phone) screen instead of in the doctor’s office? The technology of telemedicine, or telehealth, is here. So far, there is no single definition of what it does, and does not, encompass. For example, in some definitions, one of which we discuss today,...

/ May 1, 2014

Bill and Hillary Clinton go woo with Dr. Mark Hyman and “functional medicine”

Mark Hyman is a "pioneer" (if you can call it that) in a new form of quackery known as functional medicine, which combines a lot of the worst features of conventional medicine with a large dollop of "make it up as you go along" quackery. Unfortunately, it appears that the Clintons find his narrative compelling.

/ April 14, 2014