Results for: homeopathy
In the tradition of Chairman Mao, traditional Chinese medicine gets a new boost by the Chinese government
Despite a lack of evidence for its efficacy and safety, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has made major inroads into US medical centers, both academic and community. I've told the story of how Chairman Mao Zedong created the myth of TCM and promoted it to credulous Westerners to facilitate the "integration" of TCM and "Western medicine." Over the holiday break, I learned that...
Newborn Chiropractic, False Balance, and The Doctors
The vacuous TV docs on The Doctors have demonstrated once again why the show is a highly unreliable source for medical information of any sort.
Fake treatments for real diseases: A review of allergy and asthma advertisements by naturopaths, chiropractors, homeopaths and acupuncturists
A majority of Canadian chiropractic, naturopathic, homeopathic and acupuncture clinics claim that they can diagnose or treat allergies, sensitivities and asthma.
Son of (the unethical and unscientific) Trial To Assess Chelation Therapy rears its ugly head to the tune of $37 million
First, the NCCIH and NHLBI spend $30 million on a clinical trial of quackery for cardiovascular disease that produces predictably negative to at best equivocal results. Then that result, apparently, is enough to justify wasting another $37 million on a followup study—while dozens of other deserving studies go unfunded. Meanwhile STAT News lionizes the principal investigator of both trials as a brave...
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Oh, look. Naturopathic oncologists are pretending that theirs is a real medical specialty again.
Naturopaths labor under the delusion that theirs is a real medical specialty. It is not, and never will be. Nothing shows that better than when a bunch of naturopaths get together to examine the state of their specialty. Unfortunately for them, if it quacks like a duck...
Cranberries to prevent urinary tract infections: Another alternative medicine zombie that’s impervious to evidence
How much evidence will it take before the idea of cranberries for urinary tract infections is finally dead and buried?
Natural Medicine, Starvation, and Murder: The Story of Linda Hazzard
History is replete with doctors who practiced quackery. Here is the story of one such quack whose fasting therapy resulted in many deaths, a story that is so bizarre and horrific that it's hard to believe it really happened, but it did.
Can the mind really heal the body? The false narrative of placebo “healing” revisited
Placebo effects are inextricably bound to the question of whether the alternative medicine modalities that are being “integrated” into medicine actually have any useful therapeutic effects or not; i.e., whether they are merely placebos. Here, I examine an article in National Geographic that peddles the false narrative that placebo effects have real "healing" powers against diseases like Parkinson's disease.
Reiki and Therapeutic Touch. Compare and Contrast.
What? I’m not on vacation? I have to write a post? Crap. Remember those college essays? Compare and Contrast two topics and fill a Blue Book with your wisdom. Well, let's compare and contrast reiki and therapeutic touch, henceforth known as RATT.