Results for: speculative medicine
Ebola SCAMs
Ebola, like all diseases, is an opportunity for some to offer up curious treatments. Here is a brief budget of Ebola-related SCAM (supplements, complementary and alternative medicine) and a few Dug the Dog digressions. Homeopathy Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned. ~ Emile Durkheim. Homeopath? In its classic form, as promulgated by Hahnemann,...
Ebola outbreaks: Science versus fear mongering and quackery
“Ebola virus particles” by Thomas W. Geisbert, Boston University School of Medicine – PLoS Pathogens, November 2008 doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000225. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons. Without a doubt the big medical story of the last week or so has been the ongoing outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa, the most deadly in history thus far. Indeed, as of this...
“Atavistic oncology”: Another dubious cancer therapy to be avoided
An idea promulgated by physicist Paul Davies that cancer is a reversion to a primordial cell type has been making the rounds. It's even spawned a form of quackery, atavistic chemotherapy, promoted by Dr. Frank Arguello. Davies, in his hubris and his view of himself as an "outsider," seems to think he's the first scientist to have ever had this "brilliant insight,"...
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Separating facts from fiction
Does multiple chemical sensitivity exist? The symptoms certainly do, but it's less clear if they are due to "chemicals".
Separating Fact From Fiction in the Not-So-Normal Newborn Nursery: Umbilical Cord Blood Banking
For those who can’t get enough of Clay Jones, he is now available in multimedia through the magic of podcasts! Dr. Jones was interviewed for The Prism blog last Monday, discussing the general topic of alternative medicine and pediatrics, followed by a dive into fluoride and cavities in kids. It is available for your listening pleasure at their website or on iTunes....
Candida and Fake Illnesses
While Big Pharma has been accused of inventing diseases, alternative medicine is the real champion of this practice. Compromised immunity can lead to overgrowth of the fungus Candida albicans, but this doesn't happen in people with intact immune systems, and it doesn't lead to the vague, unrelated symptoms described as "systematic candidiasis" by alternative medicine proponents.
More bad science in the service of anti-GMO activism
I never used to write much about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) before. I still don’t do it that often. For whatever reason, it just hasn’t been on my radar very much. That seems to be changing, however. It’s not because I went seeking this issue out (although I must admit that I first became interested in genetic engineering when I was in...
Acupuncture
Overview Index of SBM Posts Outside Resources Key Research The ScienceBasedMedicine.org Reference Pages are reviews of topics relevant to science and medicine. Each consists of a concise overview of the topic from a scientific perspective, an index of the most relevant posts here on SBM, links to some external resources we recommend, and our summaries of the most interesting and important...
Frightening Breast Cancer Patients with Bad Science
No Time to Waste: Avoidant Coping Style Scrambles Circadian Rhythms in Breast Cancer Patients, warned the headline of an article in Clinical Psychiatry News. The article went on to claim Even in the earliest days following a diagnosis of breast cancer, maladaptive coping styles are associated with a disruption in circadian rhythms –which are proven in metastatic disease to be a prognostic...
Procera AVH: A Pill to Restore Memory
At the recent Amaz!ng (no, the ! is not a typo) Meeting in Las Vegas, Dr. Gorski, Dr. Novella, “Dr. Rachie” (Rachael Dunlop of Australia) and I participated in a workshop on “Dr. Google” about how to find reliable health information on the Internet. In my presentation, I described step by step how I researched a typical diet supplement product, Procera AVH....