April 15, 2013
It's been a while since I've done this, but somehow now seems to be the right time, particularly after doing such a long post yesterday on the intellectually dishonest promotion of "brave maverick" cancer doctor Stanislaw Burzynski. Unfortunately, dubious clinics like the Burzynski Clinic are not…
April 14, 2013
About a month ago, Eric Merola screened his second movie about "brave maverick doctor" Stanislaw Burzynski, Burzynski: Cancer Is A Serious Business, Part 2 (henceforth referred to as "Burzynski II"), a screening that Brian Thompson and an unnamed colleague from the James Randi Educational…
April 11, 2013
I suppose that while I'm on another roll writing about the antivaccine movement I should just embrace it. I was going to start this post out again with one of my periodic laments about how blogging about the antivaccine movement has taken over and crowded out other topics that I like to write about…
April 10, 2013
I guess that the antivaccinationists didn't listen to me last time when I suggested that maybe—just maybe—using Holocaust analogies when discussing autism and vaccines is just a wee bit inappropriate, such an overblown analogy that it spreads far more heat than light. At least, Kent Heckenlively…
April 9, 2013
If there's one thing that a certain subset of people who view themselves as reasonable and science-based don't like, it's harshness: Harshness in criticism, harshness in discussion, or—horror of horrors!—anything they view as "incivility." That's all well and good as far as it goes, but the problem…
April 9, 2013
Last week, I noted a particularly loathsome trend (even for antivaccinationists) to invoke Holocaust analogies for what they view as the "vaccine-induced autism epidemic holocaust." Now, loathsome analogies are not uncommon among antivaccinationists, who routinely refer to their children as "…
April 8, 2013
One of the more depressing things about getting much more interested in the debate over how we should screen for common cancers, particularly breast and prostate cancer, is my increasing realization of just how little physicians themselves understand about the complexities involved in weighing the…
April 6, 2013
It's very clear that many antivaccinationists hate autistic children. The language they use to describe them makes that very clear. Such children are "damaged" (by vaccines, of course); the parents' real children were "stolen" from them (by vaccines); they are "toxic" (from vaccines); the "light…
April 5, 2013
Over the years this blog's been in existence, I've fallen into a habit in which I tend to like to finish off the week taking on a bit of science (well, usually pseudoscience) that is either really out there, really funny, or in general not as heavy as, for example, writing about someone like…
April 3, 2013
Every so often I come across a news story relevant to the subject matter usually encompassed by this blog that makes me shake my head in disbelief at the sheer stupidity. OK, every day, if you count the antivaccine movement and its attacks on papers like the one I wrote about Monday and yesterday.…
April 2, 2013
Last week, the Journal of Pediatrics published a study that did a pretty good job of demolishing a favorite antivaccine trope used to frighten parents. In fact, it's one of the most effective of antivaccine tropes, as evidenced by a large number of parents who are generally pro-vaccine expressing…
April 1, 2013
I got a bit behind on my work yesterday, so I'll be brief. Yesterday, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) announced its annual Pigasus Awards. Sadly, each and every year, there are far more "deserving" candidates than there are awards to give. However, this year marks something awesome,…
April 1, 2013
This is just a quick announcement. I've been informed by Steve Novella that the Science-Based Medicine blog is currently down. It's been down for several hours now. Steve's crack team of techies is working on the problem right now. More information as updates come in.
April 1, 2013
There are some days when I know what my topic will be—what it must be. These are times in which the universe gives the very appearance of handing to me my topic for the day on the proverbial silver platter with a giant hand descending from the clouds, pointing at it, and saying, "Blog about this,…
March 31, 2013
It's been less than a week since I wrote about Stanislaw Burzynski. In fact, as hard as it is to believe, I've been trying not to. Obviously, I'm failing, but what can I say? Things keep happening.
In particular, there's Eric Merola. You remember Eric Merola? He's the producer of a propaganda film…
March 29, 2013
Three weeks ago, a certain "friend" of mine gave a talk to the National Capital Area Skeptics at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, VA. The topic was one near and dear to my heart, namely quackademic medicine; so I couldn't resist posting a link to the video.
Amusingly, Jake Crosby…
March 28, 2013
"Common sense" is not so common. Actually, that's not exactly right. What I meant was that what most people think of as "common sense" has little or nothing to do with what science concludes. Evidence talks, "common sense" walks. I saw a fantastic example to illustrate this point on a certain blog…
March 27, 2013
When I wrote about the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) trial last week, little did I suspect that I would be revisiting the topic again so soon. For those of you not familiar with TACT, it was a trial designed to test a favorite quack treatment for cardiovascular disease, chelation therapy…
March 27, 2013
It's been a while since I've written about Brian Berman. We first met him when he somehow managed to insinuate a "case report" of chronic low back pain into The New England Journal of Medicine in which he recommended acupuncture for this patient. Dr. Berman also happens to be a founder of…
March 26, 2013
Here we go again.
Every time I think I can get away from this topic for a while, I get sucked back in. Indeed, it seems that hardly a week can go by when I don't find myself pulled inexorably back to this horrible, horrible clinic and what I consider to be the abuses of science and clinical trials…
March 24, 2013
There are many fallacies that undergird alternative medicine, which evolved into "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), and for which the preferred term among its advocates is now "integrative medicine," meant to imply the "best of both worlds." If I had to pick one fallacy that rules…
March 21, 2013
I don't always blog about stories or studies that interest me right away. Part of the reason is something I've learned over the last eight years of blogging, namely that, while it's great to be the firstest with the mostest, I'd rather be the blogger with the mostest than the firstest. I've learned…
March 20, 2013
Heidi Stevenson amuses me.
The reasons are legion. Be it the time when Heidi lectured scientists on anecdotal evidence (which she values far more highly than scientists, of course, declaring it the "basis of all knowledge"); launched a vile and nonsensical attack on Stephen Barrett; argued against…
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…
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 hear someone…
March 17, 2013
I know I dump on a website known as The Thinking Moms' Revolution (TMR), but I do so with good reason. Given what a wretched hive of antivaccine scum and quackery that website is, rivaling or surpassing any antivaccine website I can think of, even the blog equivalent of the great granddaddies of…
March 15, 2013
It's been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
Besides indulging my taste for shamelessly working lyrics from Led Zeppelin and other classic bands into my post, what am I talking about? Simple. Things have been way too serious lately. I mean, just look at…
March 13, 2013
Film producer Eric Merola seems to think that there is a conspiracy of skeptics (whom he calls The Skeptics) hell bent on harassing his hero, Brave Maverick Doctor Stanislaw Burzynski. According to his latest film Burzynski: Cancer Is A Serious Business, Part 2 (henceforth referred to as Burzynski…
March 12, 2013
With very limited exceptions, chelation therapy is, as I said before in my somewhat Insolent opinion, is pure quackery. The sole exception is for real, documented cases of acute heavy metal poisoning that are known to respond to chelation, such as iron overload due to transfusion, aluminum overload…
March 10, 2013
One of the strategies that Stanislaw Burzynski will undoubtedly use to "prove" in Eric Merola's new Stanislaw Burzynski movie that antineoplastons work in cancer will be to highlight "success stories." Last year, Burzynski apologists frequently pointed to a girl with an inoperable brain tumor named…