Tag: cough and cold

The Worst Homeopathy Study. Ever

I run across a lot of information in my feeds that I need to save for further evaluation. The study “Does additional antimicrobial treatment have a better effect on URTI cough resolution than homeopathic symptomatic therapy alone? A real-life preliminary observational study in a pediatric population“, I saved with the file name, ‘jaw droppingly stupid’. The worst homeopathy clinical trial ever doesn’t...

/ September 18, 2015

CAM: The Beer Goggles of Medicine

It is summer, the kids are off, and time to write dwindles in the face of sun and golf. Nonsense knows no season, and in my readings this week I came across the phrase “the undeniable power of the placebo.” I will do my best to deny that power at least three times before I crow my conclusion. One of my first...

/ July 29, 2011

Good Idea, Bad Execution: Dosing Errors, A Preventable Harm

We spend a lot time at SBM discussing different elements of the art and science of medicine, and how we believe that practice can be improve. Yet our science-based intentions can be thwarted at the last possible moment – in the form of dosing errors. The workup may have been comprehensive, the diagnosis could be correct, the most clinically and cost-effective intervention...

/ December 9, 2010

What’s with the new cough and cold products?

One of my earliest lessons as a pharmacist working in the “real world” was that customers didn’t always act the way I expected. Parents of sick children frequently fell into this category — and the typical vignette went like this for me: Parent has determined that their child is sick, and needs some sort of over-the-counter medicine. Parent asks pharmacist for advice...

/ November 26, 2010