Respectful Insolence
Search Results for robert o. young
The quack view of preventing breast cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie, part 2
Posted by Orac on May 16, 2013 After yesterday, I really hadn’t planned on writing about Angelina Jolie and her decision to undergo bilateral mastectomies again, except perhaps as a more serious piece next week on my not-so-super-secret other blog where The Name of the Doctor is revealed on a weekly basis. As I mentioned yesterday, there are a number of issues…
Alternative cancer “cures”: Nothing’s changed in 34 years
Posted by Orac on May 13, 2013 Sometimes blogging topics arise from the strangest places. It’s true. For instance, although references to how tobacco causes cancer and the decades long denialist campaign by tobacco companies are not infrequently referenced in my blogging (particularly from supporters of highly dubious studies alleging a link between cell phone radiation and cancer and the ham-handed misuse…
Disease, “dis-ease,” what’s the difference?
Posted by Orac on March 19, 2013 I’ve had a rule of thumb for a while that helps me identify quacks with a high degree of accuracy. It’s not very sensitive, as a lot of quacks don’t exhibit this trait, but it’s very specific. A lot of quacks don’t use the term; so not hearing says nothing about a practitioner. If you…
Get out the popcorn! This internecine war among antivaccinationists is getting interesting (part 2)
Posted by Orac on February 26, 2013 It’s been well over two weeks since I urged everyone to get out the popcorn and sit back to enjoy the internecine war going on over in the antivaccine movement. The reason for my chuckling was the way that everyone’s favorite Boy Wonder Reporter Propagandist for the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism, Jake Crosby,…
In which Joe Jackson’s wisdom about cancer is apparently not validated
Posted by Orac on January 11, 2013 Everything Everything gives you cancer Everything Everything gives you cancer There’s no cure, there’s no answer Everything gives you cancer – Joe Jackson I don’t write about nutrition as much as other topics because I’m not as knowledgeable about it as I am about, say, cancer, vaccines, and what constitutes good medical evidence. (I am,…
A slightly different alternative medicine cancer cure testimonial
Posted by Orac on October 12, 2012 And now for something completely different… Well, not really. It’s a little different, but regular readers will soon recognize it as a variation on the same old theme. One topic I’ve been writing about since the very beginning of this blog is the alternative medicine cancer cure testimonial, or, more specifically, the breast cancer cure…
Overselling preclinical results
Posted by Orac on September 17, 2012 As part of my ongoing effort to make sure that I never run out of blogging material, I subscribe to a number of quack e-mail newsletters. In fact, sometimes I think I’ve probably overdone it. Every day, I get several notices and pleas from various wretched hives of scum and quackery, such as NaturalNews.com, Mercola.com,…
Alternative medicine as religion
Posted by Orac on August 15, 2012 Over the years, I’ve often likened non-science-based medical belief systems to religion. It’s not a hard argument to make. Religion involves believing in things that can’t be proven scientifically; indeed, religion makes a virtue out of ignoring the evidence and accepting various beliefs on faith alone. Similarly, alternative medicine frequently tells you that you have…
Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier hits a new low: Age of Autism rallies to defend him
Posted by Orac on June 27, 2012 Remember Luc Montagnier? Sure, you do. He’s the Nobel Laureate whose identification of the virus that causes AIDS garnered him plaudits, laurels, and, of course, the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Unfortunately, since winning the Nobel Prize, from a scientific standpoint, Montagnier’s been on a downward spiral. Sadly, it didn’t take long after his Nobel acceptance…
Dr. Bob Sears vs. Seth Mnookin: Measles outbreaks, AB 2109, and lacking the courage of one’s convictions
Posted by Orac on March 27, 2012 It would appear that Dr. Bob Sears, author of The Vaccine Book, is in the news again. Specifically, he’s brought himself back into the spotlight by publishing in that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post, a fallacy-filled attack on a bill in California, AB 2109, designed to tighten up the process for…
Fighting the “acid” of negative (e)motions?
Posted by Orac on March 15, 2012 If there’s one quack who both amuses and appalls me at the same time, it’s Robert O. Young. You remember Robert O. Young, don’t you? He’s the guy who thinks that all disease is caused by excess acid. I’ve written about him quite a few times over the last several years. For instance, he amused…
A one trick pony does his one trick
Posted by Orac on January 13, 2012 It’s funny, but it’s only been one week since I expressed extreme skepticism that that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post, had reformed itself. The reason, of course, was that HuffPo had announced that it was starting a science section. Even though on the surface it seemed that HuffPo was making the…
A profound misunderstanding of the significance of cranks in science
Posted by Orac on January 10, 2012 I’ve spent a lot of time over the years looking at cranks, examining crank science (i.e., pseudoscience), and trying to figure out how to inoculate people against crankery. Because I’m a physician, I tend to do it mostly in the realm of medicine by critically examining “alternative” medical claims and discussing the scientific basis of…
A “homeopathic physician” in Arizona versus science
Posted by Orac on December 2, 2011 I’m a cancer surgeon and have been since I finished my fellowship nearly 13 years ago. That is, of course, one big reason that, after I found myself drifting towards becoming a skeptic, it didn’t take long for me to take an interest in “alternative medicine,” in particular alternative medicine for cancer. Perhaps that’s why…
“Just one more thing”
Posted by Orac on October 31, 2011 I’ve written quite a bit about Steve Jobs’ battle with pancreatic cancer over the years and, more recently, in the wake of his death nearly four weeks ago. The reason, of course, is that the course of his cancer was of intense interest after it became public knowledge that he had cancer. In particular, what…
Six medical “myths” that aren’t
Posted by Orac on October 25, 2011 I usually don’t do requests, at least not very often. As selfish as it might sound, I do this blog mainly to amuse myself, which means that I choose whatever topics interest me and write about them. Believe it or not, I’d probably still be doing this even if my readership were 1/100 of what…
Alternative medicine: The illusion of control
Posted by Orac on October 17, 2011 We humans like control. Actually, we need to feel as though we are in control. Perhaps that’s why, when we aren’t in control–can’t be in control, for whatever reason–we instinctively seek ways of being more in control, or at least of feeling as though we are in control. I’ve often wondered if providing the illusion…
The complexity of cancer, part II: Enter the quacks
Posted by Orac on August 25, 2011 A couple of days ago, I couldn’t resist discussing a recent article in the New York Times about recent discoveries in cancer research. I considered the article to be a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. While the article did a pretty good job of describing recent discoveries about how noncoding RNA,…
R.I.P. David Servan-Schreiber
Posted by Orac on August 2, 2011 One of the very first themes I started hammering on in this blog, dating back to its very inception, is the analysis of alternative medicine cancer testimonials. One reason was (and is) that I take care of cancer patients and do research into developing new treatments for a living. Another reason is that, to the…
JAMA actually gets it right regarding supplements
Posted by Orac on July 7, 2011 I just saw something I don’t see every day. Or every week. Or every month. Or even every year. I frequently complain about supplements on this blog. Well, not supplements per se but rather the double standard we have in this country when it comes to supplements. Basically, supplements are about as close to unregulated…
Dr. Egnor has his own blog now. Hilarity ensues about evolution and medicine.
Posted by Orac on June 24, 2011 Remember Michael Egnor? I bet many of you do. If you were reading this blog three or four years ago, Dr. Egnor was a fairly regular target topic of my excretions of not-so-Respectful Insolence. The reason for that was, at the time, I was quite annoyed that a fellow surgeon could so regularly lay down…
The 2011 measles outbreak and vaccines in Nature
Posted by Orac on May 27, 2011 I was debating what to blog about last night, and it wasn’t easy. We’re in the midst of yet another embarrassment of riches, as far as topics relevant to this blog go. Then I noticed something that I considered to be quite appropriate, given that we are now right in the middle of the yearly…
All bacteria are bad?
Posted by Orac on May 17, 2011 Remember Robert O. Young? He’s the purveyor of only the finest quackery. Note that, by “finest,” I mean the most highly entertaining, the sort of utter twaddle that makes me laugh out loud when I read it. Whether it’s his claim that alkalinization is the cure for basically all disease, his characterizing sepsis as not…
Motivated reasoning and the anti-vaccine movement
Posted by Orac on May 9, 2011 One theme that I keep revisiting again and again is not so much a question of the science behind medical therapies (although certainly I do discuss that issue arguably more than any other) but rather a question of why. Why is it that so many people cling so tenaciously to pseudoscience, quackery, and, frequently, conspiracy…
Yet another misleading alt-med cancer testimonial
Posted by Orac on April 12, 2011 They call them Necromancers. Necromancers have an uncanny ability to resurrect an old thread by commenting on it months, even years, after the last comment. Unfortunately, as hard as it is to believe, the version of Movable Type used by Seed to power our blogs does not have a preference panel that allows us to…