Results for: acupuncture
Obamacare and CAM II: Discrimination (or not) against CAM
Supporters of science-based medicine have expressed concern over this provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare,” or the “ACA.”): SEC. 2706. NON-DISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH CARE. (a) PROVIDERS.—A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall not discriminate with respect to participation under the plan or coverage against any health care provider...
Patients Still Respect Evidence
A recent survey about patient attitudes and desires with regard to health care demonstrate that respect for scientific evidence is still the dominant factor in preferring treatments. (Full study) This is good news, although the numbers could be better. Researchers asked subjects what factors were important in determining which treatments they would prefer, the scientific evidence, the experience of the clinician, or...
Antivaccine versus anti-GMO: Different goals, same methods
Countering ideologically motivated bad science, pseudoscience, misinformation, and lies is one of the main purposes of this blog. Specifically, we try to combat such misinformation in medicine; elsewhere Steve and I, as well as some of our other “partners in crime” combat other forms of pseudoscience. During the nearly five year existence of this blog, we’ve covered a lot of topics in...
News flash! Doctors aren’t all compliant pharma drones!
There’s an oft-quoted saying that’s become a bit of a cliché among skeptics that goes something like this: There are two kinds of medicine: medicine that’s been proven scientifically to work, and medicine that hasn’t. This is then often followed up with a rhetorical question and its answer: What do call “alternative medicine” that’s been proven to work? Medicine. Of course, being...
Physicians and “CAM”
In the last 20 or so years, the popularity of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” began to lure physicians (M.D.s and D.O.s) into employing CAM treatments, or what is now rebranded as “integrative medicine.” Of course, CAM use by a physician necessarily requires some deviation from the “conventional” standard of care. Because deviation from the standard of care can be grounds for discipline by the...
Guiding Lights
This is, I admit, a content free post. July and August are the sunny days here in the great Pacific Northwest, and rather than spend time in front of the computer, I am outside with the kids. To compound matters, I was on call the labor day weekend (I usually write the first draft the weekend before the posts are due) and...
The DC as PCP? Revisited
There is a disturbing effort afoot to rebrand chiropractors as primary care physicians, a subject both Harriet Hall and I have discussed in previous posts. Part of this effort includes convincing state legislatures to grant prescription privileges to chiropractors, an effort that succeeded in New Mexico, as reported in a post a couple of years ago. Let’s return to New Mexico and...
Rejecting cancer treatment: What are the consequences?
There have been several studies of people who have refused scientific treatments for cancer. The results have not been good.
The Power of Replication – Bems Psi Research
I love reading quotes by the likes of Karl Popper in the scientific literature. A recent replication of Bem’s infamous psi research, Feeling the Future, gives us this quote: Popper (1959/2002) defined a scientifically true effect as that “which can be regularly reproduced by anyone who carries out the appropriate experiment in the way prescribed.” The paper is the latest replication of Daryl Bem’s...
Andrew Weil’s Seasonal Supplements
Dr. Andrew Weil has teamed with Innate Response Formulas to develop a series of seminars and a line of products for “seasonally appropriate integrative strategies.” Seasonal Therapeutics is a system for adjusting diet supplement recommendations according to the season of the year. To kick off the program, a one-day seminar was presented by Weil’s colleague Tierona Low Dog in Boston on August...