complementary and alternative medicine
Respectful Insolence
Tag archives for complementary and alternative medicine
R.I.P., Seán Ó’Laighin
Posted by Orac on March 20, 2013 This will be an uncharacteristically short (for Orac) post. A couple of months ago, I wrote about the sad story of a young man from Ireland named Seán Ó’Laighin diagnosed with an inoperable brainstem glioma at age 19. Even more sadly, this young man heard about the Burzynski Clinic in Houston and believed the claims…
The Cleveland Clinic Foundation: Mixing cow pie with apple pie in pediatrics
Posted by Orac on February 27, 2013 Thanks to a winter storm that dumped a heapin’ helpin’ of heavy wet snow on us last night, we lost power before this post even got going. However, I did have a bit of time this morning to finish it up as a quickie (by my standards) before my laptop battery indicator started expressing its…
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.…
CAM practitioners versus preventive medicine
Posted by Orac on January 3, 2013 If there’s one claim that practitioners of “holistic” medicine frequently make, it’s that “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine” or whatever the term du jour for the combining of quackery with science-based medicine is these days is allegedly so much better than “conventional” or “allopathic” medicine (or whatever disparaging term “holistic practitioners” prefer)…
“Moneyball,” politics, and science-based medicine
Posted by Orac on November 14, 2012 Regular readers probably know that I’m into more than just science, skepticism, and promoting science-based medicine (SBM). (If they’re regular readers of my other, not-so-super-secret other project, they might also realize that they’ve seen this post before elsewhere. I had to stay out late for a work-related event and decided to tart it up and…
“Holistic” versus homeopathy versus The Secret
Posted by Orac on November 13, 2012 “Holistic.” How often do we hear that word bandied about by practitioners of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or, as it’s increasingly called, “integrative medicine” (IM)? Lots. The reason is that CAM/IM practitioners seem to think they own the word. They’ve so utterly co-opted it that it has become meaningless, in the process perverting it.…
One more example of the price of refusing science-based cancer therapy
Posted by Orac on October 10, 2012 Another year, another Breast Cancer Awareness Month. While most people who have either been touched by breast cancer or who have a professional interest in it, the significance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is that it is a time, well, to increase awareness and to promote breast cancer research. There is another side to Breast…
Quackademic medicine versus cancer quackery: The central dogma of alternative medicine is questioned by an advocate of “integrative medicine”
Posted by Orac on August 22, 2012 Since I seem to be on a roll the last few days discussing cancer quackery, I thought I’d just go with it at least one more day. Frequently, when I get on these rolls laying down the Insolence, both Respectful and not-so-Respectful, over antivaccine quackery I start whining about how I need to change topics,…
How not to choose a keynote speaker for a “scientific assembly”
Posted by Orac on August 7, 2012 One of the consistent themes I’ve maintained on this blog over the years is to combat in my own small way in my own small corner of the Internet, the influx into medical academia of medicine based not on science, but on prescientific notions of disease, vitalism, and magic, such as homeopathy (which is sympathetic…
Cancer Treatment Centers of America, naturopathy, and “naturopathic oncology”
Posted by Orac on July 26, 2010 Note: Parts of this post have appeared elsewhere, but not in this form. If there’s one aspect of so-called “alternative medicine” and “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) is that its practitioners tout as being a huge advantage over what they often refer to sneeringly as “conventional” or “scientific” medicine is that — or so its…
Differences between CAM practice and primary care practice
Posted by Orac on February 9, 2010 If there is one aspect of “complementary and alternative” medicine (CAM) that can puzzle advocates of science-based medicine, it’s why, given how nonsensical much of it is given that some of it actually goes against the laws of physics (think homeopathy or distance healing), CAM is so popular. Obviously one reason is that there are…
Does alternative medicine use result in worse outcomes in breast cancer?
Posted by Orac on March 23, 2009 Has it really been that long? More than two years ago, I wrote a post entitled Death by Alternative Medicine: Who’s to Blame? The topic of the post was a case report that I had heard while visiting the tumor board of an affiliate of my former cancer center describing a young woman who had…
Will the government ever regulate dietary supplements?
Posted by Orac on March 11, 2009 Advocates of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) frequently make the claim that they are the victims of a “double standard,” in which (or so they claim) they are subjected to harsher standards than what they often refer to as “conventional” or “orthodox” medicine, usually because, don’t you know, big pharma controls everything and rigs…
The Three Musketeers of Woo meet d’Artagnan to fight for woo on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal
Posted by Orac on January 12, 2009 The seemingly never-ending quest of advocates of unscientific medicine, the so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) movement is to convince policy makers, patients, and physicians that, really and truly, it no longer deserves the qualifier of “alternative,” that it is in fact mainstream and even “scientific.” That very search for respectability without accountability is the…