Results for: naturopath
The Cure
Legislative Alchemy In Legislative Alchemy I: Naturopathy, II: Chiropractic and III: Acupuncture, we learned how state legislatures transform scientifically implausible and unproven diagnostic methods and treatments into legal health care practices. Examples typical of the sheer nonsense found in both proposed and actual legislation include: Naturopathic health care [is] a system of health care practices for the prevention, diagnosis, evaluation and treatment...
Legislative Alchemy III: Acupuncture
Acupuncture is typically depicted as sticking needles at various points on the body prescribed (inconsistently, it turns out) by charts indicating purported “meridians” through which “qi” flows in the human, or animal, body. However, from one of the many SBM posts on acupuncture, this one by Dr. Novella , we in fact know that: the consensus of the best clinical studies on...
Andrew Weil and “integrative medicine”: The ultimate triumph of quackery?
A board certification in woo? I’ve been harshly critical of the entire concept of “integrative medicine” (IM), which has over the last few years nearly supplanted the former term used for non-science-based medicine or medicine based on prescientific ideas represented as though it were scientific medicine, “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM). Indeed, just last week I pointed out how IM is far...
Legislative Alchemy II: Chiropractic
As we learned in Legislative Alchemy I: Naturopathy, legislative alchemy is the process used by state legislatures to transform implausible and unproven diagnostic methods and treatments into legal health care practices. Today, we review how chiropractors are faring in the 2011 state legislative sessions. Chiropractic 101 In 1895, a self-described “magnetic healer,” Daniel David Palmer, claimed to have discovered that every person...
Survey says, “Hop on the bandwagon of ‘integrative medicine’!”
A Brief Clinical Vignette In researching this post, I found an article published nearly two years ago in The Hospitalist entitled Growth Spurt: Complementary and alternative medicine use doubles, which began with this anecdote: Despite intravenous medication, a young boy in status epilepticus had the pediatric ICU team at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison stumped....
Quoth the anti-vaccine group SANE Vax: Beware HPV DNA in Gardasil!
Every so often, there’s a bit of misinformation that starts spreading around the Internet that shows up in enough places that our readers take notice and e-mail us about it. What happens is that these in essence become “requests.” We at SBM are, of course, happy to consider all requests and sometimes will actually take them on, particularly when doing so will...
Oh yeah? Thalidomide! Where’s your science now?
Online discussions on the merits of alternative medicine can get quite heated. And its proponents, given enough time, will inevitably cite the same drug as “evidence” of the failings of science. Call it Gavura’s Law, with apologies to Mike Godwin: As an online discussion on the effectiveness of alternative medicine grows longer, the probability that thalidomide will be cited approaches one. A...
“Integrative medicine”: A brand, not a specialty
Back in the mists of time, what used to be considered quackery became "alternative medicine." Thus began the rebranding. The latest iteration is "integrative medicine," which advocates the "integration" of quackery with science-based medicine, which it portrays as the "best of both worlds." It's been a very effective campaign, unfortunately.
Answering another criticism of science-based medicine
In the three and a half years that the Science-Based Medicine blog has existed, we contributors have come in for our share of criticism. Sometimes, the criticism is relatively mild; often it’s based on a misunderstanding of what SBM is; but sometimes it’s quite nasty. I can’t speak for the rest of the SBM crew on this, but I’ve gotten used to...
Dummy Medicines, Dummy Doctors, and a Dummy Degree, Part 1: a Curious Editorial Choice for the New England Journal of Medicine
Background This post concerns the recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) titled “Active Albuterol or Placebo, Sham Acupuncture, or No Intervention in Asthma.” It was ably reviewed by Dr. Gorski on Monday, so I will merely summarize its findings: of the three interventions used—inhaled albuterol (a bronchodilator), a placebo inhaler designed to mimic albuterol, or ‘sham acupuncture’—only albuterol...