Results for: CAM
April Fool Cannot Surpass SCAM
It’s April Fools’ day in the US of A. One of the internet traditions is to come up with a story that is weird or unlikely, but not so weird or unlikely that it is not believable, in order to fool people that the story is real. I gave it the old SBM try, I really did, but I couldn’t do it....
Regulating CAM Aussie Style
CAM proponents view National Health Interview Surveys recording the supposed popularity of CAM, an amorphous conflation of anything from conventional medical advice to mythical methods, as an invitation to unleash even more unproven remedies on the public. My interpretation is quite different. I see the same figures as proof that we are doing too little to protect the public from pseudoscience. In...
Oregon Health & Science University SCAM Day
I was looking over a recent class catalog from my alma mater, University of Oregon. I see the Astronomy Department is having a day devoted to astrology, inviting astrologers to talk about their profession. And the Chemistry department is having alchemists give an overview on how to change base metals into gold. And, to green our energy, the Physics Department, where I...
Legislative Alchemy 2015: Another losing season for CAM practitioners
One of the main, but perhaps underappreciated, reasons quackery thrives in the United States is that the states legalize it by licensing practitioners of pseudoscience as health care providers. These practitioners are placed under the regulatory jurisdiction of, well, themselves. I call the whole deplorable process Legislative Alchemy, and you can see all posts on the topic here. It gives practitioners an...
SCAM Cell Therapies
Injecting animal cells into humans for therapeutic reasons has a long history. The most infamous was John Brinkley who injected goat testicles into 16,000 men in the 1920s and 30s to treat impotence. Harriet wrote a review of Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam, which covers the topic. I wonder who would get...
Here be Dragons: Caring for Children in a Dangerous Sea of sCAM
As a pediatrician working in a relatively sCAM-inclined region, it is not uncommon to find myself taking care of patients who are also being followed by so-called alternative medicine practitioners. This often creates a major obstacle to providing appropriate care and establishing an atmosphere of mutual trust in the provider-patient/parent relationship. It usually makes me feel like I’m battling invisible serpents in...
Attitudes Predict CAM Use
One of the persistent themes of SBM is that CAM (complementary and alternative medicine, or integrative medicine) is nothing more than a marketing brand. Its recent popularity is not based upon new evidence or a changing paradigm of medicine as its proponents claim. Its popularity is increasing despite the lack of evidence for specific CAM treatments and despite a dedication to evidence-based...
Risks of CAM Treatments for Cancer
“What’s the harm?” is an insidious idea when used as a justification for unscientific medical treatments. The argument is typically put forward with the assumption that direct physical harm is the only type of harm that can result from such treatments, so as long as they aren’t toxic there is no downside to trying them. Harm comes in many forms, however: delayed...
Ebola SCAMs
Ebola, like all diseases, is an opportunity for some to offer up curious treatments. Here is a brief budget of Ebola-related SCAM (supplements, complementary and alternative medicine) and a few Dug the Dog digressions. Homeopathy Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned. ~ Emile Durkheim. Homeopath? In its classic form, as promulgated by Hahnemann,...
Chiropractic “pediatrics” firmly in the anti-vaccination camp
Who would you invite to speak at your conference if you wanted to show the world you are firmly in the anti-vaccination camp? Barbara Loe Fisher, head of the National Vaccine (Mis) Information Center (NVIC)? How about Andrew Wakefield, the thoroughly disgraced British physician who, having been stripped of his medical license, continues his despicable anti-vaccination campaign? How about both? The International...