Tag: homeopathy
Scientific American Declares Homeopathy Indispensable to Planet and Human Health
I recently received an e-mail from one of SBM’s readers in Brazil, Felipe Nogueira Barbara de Oliveira, a PhD candidate in Medical Science who holds an MS in Computer Science and is who is trying to promote critical thinking and scientific medicine in his country. He sent me a jpeg copy of a short piece that was published (in Portuguese) in the...
The Marino Center for Integrative Health: Hooey Galore
Two weeks ago I promised that I would discuss the Marino Center for Integrative Health, identified in the recent Bravewell report as having a “hospital affiliation” with the Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH) in Newton, Massachusetts, which is where I work. I also promised in that post that I’d provide examples of ‘integrative medicine’ practitioners offering false information about the methods that they endorse. I’d...
Bravewell Bimbo Eruptions
This is yet another response to the recent “Integrative Medicine in America” report published by the Bravewell Collaborative. Drs. Novella and Gorski have already given that report its due, so I won’t repeat the background information. Inevitably, I’ll cover some of the same points, but I’ll also try to emphasize a few that stand out to me. Most of these have been...
What is Science?
Consider these statements: …there is an evidence base for biofield therapies. (citing the Cochrane Review of Touch Therapies) The larger issue is what constitutes “pseudoscience” and what information is worthy of dissemination to the public. Should the data from our well conducted, rigorous, randomized controlled trial [of ‘biofield healing’] be dismissed because the mechanisms are unknown or because some scientists do not...
Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions
I wrote an introduction to the first in a series of books republishing classic skeptical works - Oliver Wendell Holmes' Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions. Reproduced here by permission of the James Randi Educational Foundation is that introduction. Enjoy!
Night of the living naturopaths
Colorado’s “degreed” naturopaths (NDs) are nothing if not persistent. Starting in 1994 they have tried seven times to convince legislators that the Colorado’s public needs protection from what “traditional” naturopaths (traditionals) do, and that the best way of providing that protection, they claim, is to bestow licensure on the guys with the college degrees. The irony in this is that the NDs...
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January 26, 2012
Defining what a “physician” is
It takes more than a stethoscope and a white coat to be a physician. A generous dose of reality and a lot of training are also required.
Dummy Medicine, Dummy Doctors, and a Dummy Degree, Part 2.2: Harvard Medical School and the Curious Case of Ted Kaptchuk, OMD (cont. again)
“Strong Medicine”: Ted Kaptchuk and the Powerful Placebo At the beginning of the first edition of The Web that has no Weaver, published in 1983, author Ted Kaptchuk portended his eventual academic interest in the placebo: A story is told in China about a peasant who had worked as a maintenance man in a newly established Western missionary hospital. When he retired...
Homeopathy and Plausibility
The fundamental concept of science-based medicine (SBM) is that medical practice should be based upon the best available science. This may seem obvious, but there are many important details to its application, such as the relationship between clinical and basic science. Clinical claims require clinical evidence, but clinical evidence can be tricky and is often preliminary. It is therefore helpful (I would...
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s muddled draft policy on “non-allopathic” medicine
Detroit is my hometown, and three and a half years ago, after nearly twenty years away wandering between residency, graduate school, fellowship, and my first academic job, I found myself back in Detroit minted as surgical faculty at Wayne State University and practicing and doing research at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. One thing that I had forgotten about while I...