Results for: naturopathy v science
Skepticamp: Invading the Great White North on October 23
Are you frustrated by the prevalence of pseudoscience in medicine? Are you interested in critical thinking and science? Is SBM your rational refuge? Want to meet like-minded science advocates? On October 23, 2010 four Skepticamps will take place across Canada. If you enjoy reading this blog, you’ll probably enjoy Skepticamp. Happily, Skepticamp involves no actual camping. It’s a flexibly organized, collaborative conference...
Germ theory denial: A major strain in “alt-med” thought
As hard as it is for most physicians today to believe it, germ theory denial is a major strain of belief underlying disturbingly large swaths of alternative medicine, as well as antivaccine beliefs. Yes, infectious disease is more complex than the simplistic version of germ theory understood by the public, but the complexities do not invalidate germ theory.
Credulity about acupuncture infiltrates the New England Journal of Medicine
One of the things that disturbs me the most about where medicine is going is the infiltration of quackery into academic medicine. So prevalent is this unfortunate phenomenon that Doctor RW even coined a truly apt term for it: Quackademic medicine. In essence, pseudoscientific and even prescientific ideas are rapidly being “integrated” with science-based medicine, or, as I tend to view it,...
NCCAM Director Dr. Josephine Briggs and the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians
On Friday, one of my partners in crime here at Science-Based Medicine, Dr. Kimball Atwood, wrote an excellent Open Letter to Dr. Josephine Briggs. Dr. Briggs, as most regular readers of SBM know, is the Director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). As most regular readers of SBM also know, we at SBM have been quite critical of...
Open Letter to Dr. Josephine Briggs
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D. Director, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Dear Dr. Briggs, As you know, we’ve met twice. The first time was at the Yale “Integrative Medicine” Symposium in March. The second was in April, when Drs. Novella, Gorski and I met with you for an hour at the NCCAM in Bethesda. At the time I concluded that you...
The Texas Medical Board acts in the case of the Winkler County whistle blowing nurses
I can’t speak for anyone else who blogs here at Science-Based Medicine, but there’s one thing I like to emphasize to people who complain that we exist only to “bash ‘alternative’ medicine.” We don’t. We exist to champion medicine based on science against all manner of dubious practices. Part of that mandate involves understanding and accepting that science-based medicine is not perfect....
Cancer Treatment Centers of America and “naturopathic oncology”
EDITOR’S NOTICE: NOTE THE DISCLAIMER. On “wholistic” medicine If there’s one aspect of so-called “alternative medicine” and “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) is that its practitioners tout as being a huge advantage over what they often refer to sneeringly as “conventional” or “scientific” medicine is that — or so its practitioners claim — alt-med treats the “whole patient,” that it’s “wholistic” in...
No Education? No Training? No License? No Problem!
When Daniel David Palmer, the inventor of chiropractic, and his acolytes first took up the practice of chiropractic, around the turn of the last century, they were jailed for the unlicensed practice of medicine. If history had left them there, we might not be fighting a continuing battle with the pseudoscience that is “alternative” medicine today. Unfortunately, the Kansas legislature intervened on...
Nine Questions, Nine Answers.
This is not an easy blog to write. Doctors Novella and Gorski want the entries to be formal, academic, referenced, with a minimum of snark. For the most part I comply. But sometimes. Sometimes. It is hard, so hard, not to spiral into sarcastic diatribes over the writings that pass for information on the interwebs. How should one respond to profound ignorance...