Tag: quackery

Integrative oncology

Revisiting “integrative oncology”: The battle to integrate quackery with oncology continues

Nature Reviews Cancer published a propaganda piece disguised as commentary promoting "integrative oncology," or what I like to call "integrating" quackery with oncology.

/ August 19, 2024
Google reviews alternative cancer clinics

How Google listings are used by alternative cancer clinics to lure in desperate patients

I've long been writing about "alternative cancer clinics" (i.e., quack clinics) that sell false hope in the form of very expensive but ineffective treatments to desperate cancer patients. A recent study demonstrates how they use Google to do this.

/ August 12, 2024

Access Consciousness: Phrenology fused with energy medicine

Access Consciousness claims to show how to improve your mental and physical health by touching 32 Access Bars on your scalp. It's basically phrenology reborn and fused with "energy medicine."

/ July 8, 2024

Paul Marik: Disparaging chemotherapy in order to sell cancer quackery

Everything old is new once again, as COVID-19 quacks rehash old cancer quack claims that chemotherapy doesn't work in order to sell their preferred cancer quackery.

/ July 1, 2024

FitScript™: Functional health quackery and a misleading alternative cancer cure testimonial

Perusing the hellscape that is what Twitter has degenerated into as X, I found an alternative cancer cure testimonial, which led me into "functional health" nonsense that I hadn't encountered before. Introducing FitScript.

/ May 20, 2024
Cancer cells

There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are causing cancers associated with “accelerated aging”

A recent presentation at AACR found a link between markers of accelerated aging and an increased risk of cancer. Then antivaxxers got a hold of it to blame COVID-19 vaccines not just for cancer, but for "accelerated aging" causing it.

/ April 15, 2024
Mark Sircus

Mark Sircus and “natural allopathic medicine”? Now I’ve heard everything from quacks

The term "allopathic medicine" was invented by homeopaths in the 19th century as a disparaging term for medicine. So to see a quack like Mark Sircus try to coopt it as "natural allopathic medicine" is quite something.

/ March 25, 2024

Fenbendazole is fast becoming the laetrile of the 2020s

Antivaxxers who "repurposed" deworming drugs like ivermectin and fenbendazole are peddling cancer "miracle cure" testimonials that remind me of laetrile and Stanislaw Burzynski. Truly, everything old is new again.

/ March 4, 2024
Antivax docs

Yet more evidence that we physicians need to clean up our act

A recent study found that physicians and scientists who are perceived as "experts" are prevalent within the antivax community and more influential because of their status as physicians and scientists. Why do physicians continue to tolerate antivax quacks within our ranks?

/ February 12, 2024