Results for: publication bias
Eat Fat, Get Thin?
I recently received an e-mail from a high school science department head who is teaching a unit on nutritional science. He asked for my opinion of a YouTube video of a lecture advocating a high saturated fat diet. The speaker is Donald W. Miller, Jr., M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon at my alma mater, the University of Washington. My correspondent commented, “I have...
Blind-Spot Mapping, Cortical Function, and Chiropractic Manipulation
Steven Novella recently wrote about so-called “chiropractic neurology” and its most outspoken proponent, Ted Carrick. In 2005 I published an article in The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine (Vol 9, No 1, p. 11-15) entitled “Blind-Spot Mapping, Cortical Function, and Chiropractic Manipulation.” It was an analysis of a study Carrick had published. Carrick read a shorter, popularized version of my critique in Skeptical...
Stanislaw Burzynski: Bad medicine, a bad movie, and bad P.R.
And the Lord spake, saying, “First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the...
Acupuncture for Amblyopia
An recent article in the journal Ophthalmology reported the results of a clinical trial that evaluated acupuncture as an adjunctive treatment for anisometropic amblyopia. In the abstract, the authors conclude: Acupuncture is a potentially useful complementary treatment modality that may provide sustainable adjunctive effect to refractive correction for anisometropic amblyopia in young children. Further large-scale studies seem warranted. A little background information...
Woo-omics
Every so often, I come across studies that leave me scratching my head. Sometimes, these studies are legitimate scientific studies that have huge flaws or come from an assumption that is very off-base. Other times, they involve what Harriet Hall has termed “tooth fairy science,” wherein the tools of science are used to study a phenomenon that is fantastical, whose very existence...
Weight Loss Customers Are Being Hoodia-Winked
I first wrote about Hoodia in my “SkepDoc” column in Skeptic magazine (Vol. 13, No. 1, 2007). The following is adapted from that column with an update from new research revealing that it doesn’t work and that it causes worrisome side effects. I first heard of Hoodia in 2006, when a radio ad informed me that it was the new miracle weight...
Alternative Vaccination Schedules
Evidently the 7 billionth human is going to be born on October 31. Happy birthday and welcome to the Earth. If you were unfortunate enough to be born into a developing country or a affluent California family, you may not receive your vaccinations, and may join one the 57 million who die each year of vaccine preventable diseases (VPD). I totally misread...
Dummy Medicine, Dummy Doctors, and a Dummy Degree, Part 2.1: Harvard Medical School and the Curious Case of Ted Kaptchuk, OMD (cont.)
Rave Reviews In 1983, Ted Kaptchuk, the senior author of the recent “albuterol vs. placebo” article, and soon to become the long-time Second-in-Command of the Harvard Medical School “CAM” program, published The Web that Has No Weaver: The book received rave reviews: A major advance toward the synthesis of Western and Eastern theory. It will stimulate all practitioners to expand their understanding...
Homeopathy and Plausibility
The fundamental concept of science-based medicine (SBM) is that medical practice should be based upon the best available science. This may seem obvious, but there are many important details to its application, such as the relationship between clinical and basic science. Clinical claims require clinical evidence, but clinical evidence can be tricky and is often preliminary. It is therefore helpful (I would...
Testing a Chinese Herbal Flu Remedy
During the early days of the 2009 H1N1 influenza A pandemic, the popular herbal formula maxingshigan–yinqiaosan was used widely by TCM practitioners to reduce symptoms. (It’s hard to pronounce and spell, so I’ll refer to it as M-Y.) A new study was done to test whether M-Y worked and to compare it to the prescription drug oseltamivir. It showed that M-Y did...