Respectful Insolence
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The “pharma shill” gambit
Posted by Orac on February 14, 2013 Over the last couple of days, I’ve been discussing How “They” See “Us,” which is basically that “they” see “us” as pure evil. Well, maybe not always sheer evil, but certainly not good, and even more certainly as having ulterior motives, the most common of which is filthy pharma lucre. So it seemed appropriate, as…
How “they” view “us” (briefly revisited)
Posted by Orac on February 13, 2013 Yesterday, I wrote about how “they” view “us,” the “they” being believers in dubious medicine, pseudoscience, and outright quackery. As examples, I used believers in the unsupported claims of “brave maverick” cancer doctor Stanislaw Burzynski and antivaccine activists who are utterly convinced, against all science and evidence, that vaccines caused their children’s autism. I pointed…
How “they” view “us”
Posted by Orac on February 12, 2013 Those of us who dedicate considerable time and effort to combatting quackery generally do it because we think we’re doing good. Certainly, I wouldn’t spend so much time nearly every evening blogging the way I do if I didn’t think so. It’s true that I also enjoy it, but if I were doing this just…
Epigenetics. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Posted by Orac on February 11, 2013 Epigenetics. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. I realize I overuse that little joke, but I can’t help but think that virtually every time I see advocates of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or, as it’s known more commonly now, “integrative medicine” discussing epigenetics.…
Get out the popcorn! This internecine war among antivaccinationists is getting interesting
Posted by Orac on February 8, 2013 Alright, I give up. I’m getting out the popcorn. It’s a Friday night, and it’s on, baby! It’s so on that I’m breaking one of my blogging rules and writing up a blog post on Friday night, which is when I usually try to relax. I suppose that it helps that I’m working tonight anyway,…
No more antineoplastons? Will the FDA finally slap down Stanislaw Burzynski for good?
Posted by Orac on February 8, 2013 Earlier this week, there was a very bad, very credulous story was broadcast. Now, I realize that this is not an uncommon occurrence. Indeed, I’m sure that this sort of thing happens pretty much every day somewhere in the country and even on national media, but on this particular occasion the story was about a…
An antivaccine Frankenstein strikes back against the monster he created
Posted by Orac on February 7, 2013 On the one hand, I’m seriously tempted to get out the popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show that is the internecine conflict going on in the antivaccine movement right now. On the other hand, as bizarre as it sounds, I actually do feel a bit sorry for the main combatant, Jake Crosby. He’s the…
Gary Null and Sayer Ji love me! They really love me!
Posted by Orac on February 5, 2013 Gary Null loves me! He really loves me! Well, maybe not Gary Null, but Sayer Ji. You remember Sayer Ji, don’t you? He’s the guy who runs GreenMedInfo.com who showed up on my skeptical radar when he claimed that vaccines are “transhumanism” that subverts evolution. (Seriously, you can’t make stuff like this up.) On another…
Will naturopathic quackery be licensed in Michigan?
Posted by Orac on February 4, 2013 If I’ve pointed it out once, I’ve pointed it out a thousand times. Naturopathy is a cornucopia of almost every quackery you can think of. Be it homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, applied kinesiology, anthroposophical medicine, reflexology, craniosacral therapy, Bowen Technique, and pretty much any other form of unscientific or prescientific medicine that you…
The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation finally does the right thing and dumps Jenny McCarthy
Posted by Orac on February 2, 2013 It’s good to see that the organizers of the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation finally realized its mistake: Actress Jenny McCarthy has been dumped again. McCarthy won’t be in Ottawa for Bust A Move. The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation reacted today to a public backlash in signing the anti-vaccine campaigner to the Ottawa breast health fundraiser.…
An antivaccine Frankenstein’s monster turns on his creator
Posted by Orac on February 1, 2013 Almost everyone knows the story of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. It’s such a classic tale that has been around so long and told so many times in so many ways that it’s almost impossible for someone living in this country not to have encountered it growing up. Frankenstein’s monster is also a tale that…
We’ll take the money you can bring us, even if you’re antivaccine
Posted by Orac on January 31, 2013 I’m sure this is a case where someone thought it was a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s an astoundingly bad idea: The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation is bringing McCarthy to town March 2 to headline its annual Bust a Move fundraiser as a guest fitness instructor. But the actress, author and…
Dr. Oz’s journey to the Dark Side is now more than complete: It’s Oz and homeopathy versus science-based medicine
Posted by Orac on January 30, 2013 On Monday of this week, Michael Specter published an article in The New Yorker entitled THE OPERATOR: Is the most trusted doctor in America doing more harm than good? In the article, Specter expended considerable verbiage that, as I explained yesterday, was beautiful in how it let Oz reveal through his own words that (1)…
The Great and Powerful (Dr.) Oz, dissected in The New Yorker
Posted by Orac on January 29, 2013 In the beginning, medicine was religion. Indeed, if you look at the history of medicine, you’ll see that the very first physicians were virtually always religious figures in addition to their roles as healers. Indeed, in ancient Egypt, for example, the professions of priest and healer were one, and most medicine involved incantations, invocations of…
An excellent explanation of how dubious Stanislaw Burzynski’s activities are
Posted by Orac on January 28, 2013 The weekend was busy, and I was working on grants, which meant that I could only come up with one post of Orac-style length and depth. Sadly, it wasn’t for this blog. Fortunately, C0nc0rdance came to the rescue with a must-watch video about our old friend Stanislaw Burzynski. He’s the guy who claims to treat…
The Cochrane Collaborative’s Tom Jefferson makes the huge mistake of appearing on Gary Null’s show
Posted by Orac on January 25, 2013 Three years ago, the influenza season was a really big deal. The reason, of course, is that the 2009-2010 flu season was dominated by fears of the H1N1 strain, so much so that it was a rare flu season that there were two recommended vaccines, one for the originally expected strains of flu and one…
Beauty and the antivaccine beast
Posted by Orac on January 24, 2013 The last couple of days have been very busy, as you might have guessed from my brief (for me) post on Tuesday and my—shall we say?—appropriation of a post to use for yesterday. Today’s going to be the same, but for more pleasant reasons than having had to go out to dinner with a visiting…
Does anyone “recover” from autism?
Posted by Orac on January 23, 2013 Way back in the day, when I was a newbie at countering the mass of hysterical pseudoscience that is the antivaccine movement, particularly the myth that vaccines cause autism, a blogger by the ‘nym of Prometheus taught me that autism and autism spectrum disorders (particularly by antivaccinationists and believers in the quackery known as “autism…
Another way to join the Skeptics for the Protection of Cancer Patients’ campaign, plus: It is noticed that Stanislaw Burzynski has thrown information about his “clinical trials” down the ol’ memory hole
Posted by Orac on January 22, 2013 While I’m using my blog as an announcement platform today, I would be remiss not to mention that tomorrow is Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s birthday, and the Skeptics for the Protection of Cancer Patients are still raising money for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in order to try to get Dr. Burzynski to do something good for…
Don’t forget: NECSS 2013 is fast approaching…
Posted by Orac on January 22, 2013 Time really flies. It’s hard to believe that the first national skeptical conference of the season is NECSS 2013 (The Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism), hosted by the New York City Skeptics and the New England Skeptical Society, is fast approaching. In fact, it’s only a little more than two months away. The conference…
Quoth Joe Mercola: I love me some Burzynski antineoplastons
Posted by Orac on January 21, 2013 As I contemplated how I wanted to start the blogging week, I thought that I should probably again plug Bob Blaskiewicz’s campaign to provide Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, the Houston doctor who for the last 35 years has been treating patients diagnosed with advanced stage and terminal cancers with something he calls antineoplastons (ANPs), with a…
Subjecting children to enema “detoxification”
Posted by Orac on January 18, 2013 Even though I’ve been at this skeptical blogging thing, particularly about “alternative” medicine, so long (eight years now) that I think I’ve seen it all, that nothing the quacks do can shock me any more. It’s a foolish hubris, I admit, but, I hope, an understandable one after over eight years of blogging multiple times…
Quoth the Institute of Medicine: The current vaccine schedule is safe and effective. Quoth antivaccinationists: Gahhhh!
Posted by Orac on January 17, 2013 I sense another disturbance in the antivaccine Force. Yes, I realize that it was just a couple of days ago that I sensed a previous disturbance rippling through the antivaccine Force. That’s when antivaccinationists brought David Kirby out of mothballs from whatever journalistic slime pit he’s currently residing in to use every trick at his…
For shame, NPR, for falling for false “balance” about vaccines!
Posted by Orac on January 17, 2013 This is going to be uncharacteristically short, for me that is. I sometimes listen to NPR as I drive home from work, and I happened to be doing just that yesterday evening when I heard a story about the new Institute of Medicine report on vaccines and the vaccine schedule. (Stay tuned for my post…
More credulous reporting on placebo effects
Posted by Orac on January 16, 2013 Now that Trine Tsouderos no longer works for the Chicago Tribune, there aren’t that many reliable generalist medical/science reporters around any more. For example, here in the U.S. there’s Marilyn Marchionne at the AP, Gina Kolata of the New York Times, and then there’s Sharon Begley, who used to be at Newsweek but is now…