Tag: pragmatic studies

Ivermectin repurposing

Science-based medicine isn’t just for CAM. The case of ivermectin shows that it never was.

Another large randomized controlled trial for ivermectin showed no efficacy for the early treatment of COVID-19. This is not a surprise to science-based medicine advocates. Here's why the story of ivermectin shows that SBM isn't just for "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) —and never was.

/ April 4, 2022

Corrigendum. The Week in Review for 05/07/2017.

Death from alternative medicine impersonators. An acupuncture study done so acupuncturists can get insurance money? A chiropractor has to refund the feds one million dollars. And more.

/ May 7, 2017

Corrigendum. The Week in Review for 04/16/2017

Mumps cases, like infected parotids, swell. Doctors win with false news?!? More acupuncture studies not recognized as negative. Paying for pseudo-medicine in Vermont. Your consciousness is in your organs. And more.

/ April 16, 2017

Acupuncture does not work for menopause: A tale of two acupuncture studies

Arguably, one of the most popular forms of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) being “integrated” with real medicine by those who label their specialty “integrative medicine” is acupuncture. It’s particularly popular in academic medical centers as a subject of what I like to refer to as “quackademic medicine“; that is, the study of pseudoscience and quackery as though it were real...

/ April 18, 2016

Pragmatic Studies – More Bait and Switch

The course of research into so-called alternative medicine (CAM) over the last 20 years has largely followed the same pattern. There was little research into many of the popular CAM modalities, but proponents supported them anyway. We don’t need science, they argued, because we have anecdotes, history, and intuition. When media attention, which drove public attention, was increasingly paid to CAM then...

/ June 1, 2011

Pragmatic Studies and Cinderella Medicine

Explanatory studies are done under controlled conditions to determine whether a treatment has any efficacy compared to a placebo. Pragmatic studies are designed to assess how the intervention performs in everyday real world practice. Pragmatic studies measure practical success but don’t determine actual efficacy: that requires a proper randomized controlled trial (RCT) with an appropriate control. Pragmatic studies have their place, but...

/ May 17, 2011