Results for: cupping
SCAMlandia. CAM in Oregon.
I quite like Portlandia. I find it funny and it captures a part of Portland. I recognize large swaths of the city’s culture in the show. Other representations of the city I recognize less. Sunset publishes beautiful photographs of the NW, but when I look at the photos I think, that section of the city never looks that good. It is quite...
Andrew Weil/AAFP Article Rejected by Slate
I was asked to write an article for Slate, the on-line magazine, about Andrew Weil’s selection as the keynote speaker for the 2012 AAFP annual scientific assembly. The science and health editor, Laura Helmuth, was initially enthusiastic about what I wrote, but eventually decided not to publish it. Here is the initial draft of my article. My comments follow. Original Draft of...
Obamacare and CAM III: Great Expectations
In a previous post, we looked at how so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (or “CAM”) might fit into the definition of “essential health benefits,” which must be covered by insurers pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare,” or the “ACA”). In another, we contemplated what it might mean for insurers to “discriminate” against CAM providers, which is prohibited by...
Therapy or Injury? Your Tax Dollars at Work.
The U.S. Army Medical Command recently announced a job opening in the Interdisciplinary Pain Management Center at the San Antonio Military Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Two GS-12 positions were advertised for acupuncturists at a salary of $68,809 to $89,450. As a licensed acupuncturist, a candidate would be expected to offer a full array of the most current and emerging evidenced based...
What Is Traditional Chinese Medicine?
Traditional Chinese Medicine is not actual medicine, and should not be treated as such. It has more in common with Galen's theory of the four humors than anything a doctor would recognize today.
Strains, sprains and pains
What do you think would happen if you gave a bunch of “complementary and alternative medicine” practitioners access to a big pot of money — say, up to $10,000 per patient — and let them treat patients virtually without restriction, hampered only by a fee schedule. No utilization review, no refusal based on a treatment being “experimental” — none of the usual...
Shilling for traditional Chinese medicine: Nature leaves its readers a lump of coal before Christmas
I’ve subscribed to Nature for many years now, even though I don’t always read it. Nature is one of the oldest and most respected scientific journals around. It’s been around since 1869 and is said to be the world’s most cited journal. What makes Nature unusual these days is that it’s one of the last of the remaining general science journals and...
Defending CAM with Bad Logic and Bad Data
At SBM our mission is to promote the highest standards of science in medicine, and to explore exactly what that means, both in the specific and the general. We do spend a lot of space criticizing so-called CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) because it represents a semi-organized attempt to reduce or even eliminate the science-based standard of care, and to sow confusion...
SOS DD
What does it take to become a doctor? Endurance and perseverance help. It is a long haul from college to practice. But the skill that is most beneficial is the ability to consume prodigious amounts of information, remember it, and recall it as needed. Although I often relied on ‘B’ to get me through some of the exams. Thinking, specifically critical thinking,...
Acupuncturist’s Unconvincing Attempt at Damage Control
Acupuncture has been in the news recently. A former President of South Korea had to undergo major surgery to remove an acupuncture needle that had somehow lodged in his lung. A recent study in Pain compiled a list of 95 published reports of serious complications of acupuncture including 5 deaths. Meanwhile, acupuncturists continue to insist that their procedures are “safe.” Edzard Ernst et...