Results for: abstract
Corporate pharma ethics and you
Although I’m one of the few non-clinicians writing here at SBM, I think about clinical trials a great deal – especially this week. First, our colleague, Dr. David Gorski, had a superb analysis and highly-commented post on The Atlantic story by David H. Freedman about the work of John Ioannadis – more accurately, on Freedman’s misinterpretation of Ioannadis’s work and Dr. Gorski’s...
Lies, damned lies, and…science-based medicine?
I realize that in the question-and-answer session after my talk at the Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium a week ago I suggested in response to a man named Leon Maliniak, who monopolized the first part of what was already a too-brief Q&A session by expounding on the supposed genius of Royal Rife, that I would be doing a post about the Rife...
Uff Da! The Mayo Clinic Shills for Snake Oil
A couple of weeks ago, in a review of the Mayo Clinic Book of Home Remedies, Harriet Hall expressed relief that she hadn’t found any “questionable recommendations for complementary & alternative medicine (CAM) treatments” in that book: Since “quackademic” medicine is infiltrating our best institutions and organizations, I wasn’t sure I could trust even the prestigious Mayo Clinic. The Home Remedies book...
Oprah’s buddy Dr. Christiane Northrup and breast thermography: The opportunistic promotion of quackery
Dr. Christiane Northrup came to fame as Oprah Winfrey's resident women's health expert. Unfortunately, she's using that fame to promote the unproven breast cancer screening modality thermography during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Reflexology. Insert Nancy Sinatra Reference Here.
In the last post on acupuncture, I noted that the University of Maryland offered reflexology along with other supplements, and complementary and alternative medicine (SCAMs). I was uncertain as to the particulars of this SCAM, and this post is a result of those investigations. Although messy in reality, science is a tool that gives us an idea as to how the real...
Aspartame – Truth vs Fiction
If you believe everything you read on the internet, then it seems that a chemical found in thousands of products is causing an epidemic of severe neurological and systemic diseases, like multiple sclerosis and lupus. The FDA, the companies that make the product, and the “medical industrial complex” all know about the dangers of this chemical but are hiding the truth from...
The final nail in the mercury-autism hypothesis?
Another study. Another failure to link thimerosal to a higher risk of autism. Can we just bury the claim that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism, already?
“Complex, multi-component therapy” can be studied well
This August was a tough month for SBM bloggers reading The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Just one week after a review of acupuncture for back pain—in which the authors recommended referring patients to traditionally trained acupuncturists despite data showing that traditional needling does not outperform a blinded sham control (click here here here for the trifecta takedown)— NEJM featured an...
Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing: Road Map or Tarot Cards?
A topic of growing interest (and concern) at SBM is laboratory and diagnostic test pseudoscience. Bogus tests are everywhere, and Kimball Atwood recently discussed several of them. But over the past several years, diagnostic tests have emerged that appear to be science-based and offer gene-level insights into your health. And these tests don’t even require a physician’s visit – just a swab...
Avastin and metastatic breast cancer: When science-based medicine collides with FDA regulation
Not all drugs that prevent progression of cancer prolong the patient's survival. The case of Avastin and metastatic breast cancer reminds us of that simple, unfortunate fact once again.