“Oh, come on, Superman!”: Bill Maher versus “Western medicine”

I realize that I’ve spent a fair amount of verbiage (to put it mildly) expressing my frustration with celebrities whose support for pseudoscience and even outright quackery endanger public health. The two most frequent targets of the wrath, sarcasm, frustration, and puzzlement of me and my partners in crime at SBM have been Jenny McCarthy and her boyfriend Jim Carrey for their...

/ September 7, 2009

Placebo is not what you think it is

If I read one more crappy article about placebos, something’s gotta give, and it’s gonna be my head or my desk. Wired magazine has a new article entitled, “Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.” Frequent readers of skeptical and medical blogs will spot the first problem: the insanely nonsensical claim that “placebos are getting better”. This not...

/ September 4, 2009

An Influenza Primer

What is influenza? What is H1N1 influenza? Why is it more worrisome than the usual 'flu season? Read on to find out...

/ September 4, 2009

Sectarian Insertions

I will write occasional posts instead of being on a regular schedule.  The reasons: There are more contributors than positions. Newer people to the field have more ambition and belly fire.  I have a number of projects and papers to finish in increasingly limited time and decreasing efficiency.  So have at it. Meanwhile, some non-random thoughts. I am as concerned with social...

/ September 3, 2009

Book Review: Don’t Be Such A Scientist

Preamble I’ll never forget the day when I argued for protecting parents against misleading and false information about the treatment of autism. I was working at a large consumer health organization whose mission was to “empower patients with accurate information” so that they could take control of their health. My opposition was himself a physician who requested that our organization publish an...

/ September 3, 2009

IVF and CAM Use

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to broader acceptance of the need for a consistent scientific basis for medical interventions is the attitude that worthless treatments are harmless. I often have the experience, after reviewing the evidence showing lack of efficacy for a specific intervention, of getting the head-tilt and shrug along with some variation of the dismissive attitude,  “Well, if people feel better,...

/ September 2, 2009

“The Disappearing Male” – A Pinch of Science, a Pound of Speculation

A documentary film entitled “The Disappearing Male” was first shown on CBC in June, 2009. It can be viewed online here. Some of its rhetoric is reminiscent of Chicken Little: “Where have all the boys gone?” “Millions of males are disappearing.” “We’re on the Titanic and we see the iceberg but we just can’t turn the ship.” “It may be a threat...

/ September 1, 2009

If you’re sick, even the ridiculous can seem sublime

Let’s say you have cancer. And let’s say you’re really, really sick of having cancer. And let’s say that you’re also pretty tired of scans, chemo, radiation, hair loss, nausea. And let’s say you’re not really sick and tired of living, but actually pretty happy to be alive. Finally, let’s say someone says that they can get rid of your cancer, without...

/ August 31, 2009

“There must be a reason,” or how we support our own false beliefs

For a change of pace, I want to step back from medicine for this post, although, as you will see (I hope), the study I’m going to discuss has a great deal of relevance to the topics covered regularly on this blog. One of the most frustrating aspects of being a skeptic and championing science-based medicine is just how unyielding belief in...

/ August 31, 2009