July 4, 2009
Last week, I wrote about how Senator Tom Harkin is up to his old shenanigans again, trying at ever turn to do for the actual practice of quackery what he did for the research of quackery by creating the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and what he still does to…
July 4, 2009
While I"m on a Mitchell and Webb kick and it's still a slow blogging holiday weekend, this isn't about homeopathy but it does skewer a certain profession:
You know, I can sort of picture Dr. Michael Egnor (a younger version, of course) being the brain surgeon in this sketch...
July 3, 2009
I love Mitchell and Webb, and this is just one reason why. They totally get homeopathy, as this video e-mailed to me by a reader demonstrates:
Pay close attention to the signs in the A & E. Too bad this is too late for Homeopathy Awareness Week.
And they're funny, to boot. While I'm on the…
July 2, 2009
I may be a little late to the party, but that's because my laptop happens to have ad blocking software installed. However, blog bud PalMD rubbed my nose into a little kerfuffle that's been going on here the last couple of days. Basically, some really, really bad advertisements have been popping up…
July 2, 2009
Well it's here, just in time for the Fourth of July weekend holiday, a brand spanking new Skeptics' Circle. Given how many of our Founding Fathers were freethinkers, I like to think now is a perfect time for a shot of skeptical blogging. And our host this week has just the thing: On the Tendency of…
July 2, 2009
Last year, a seeming victory for the protection of human subjects from being subjected to pseudoscience. It began when Kimball C. Atwood IV, MD; Elizabeth Woeckner, AB, MA; Robert S. Baratz, MD, DDS, PhD; and Wallace I. Sampson, MD published a lengthy criticism of the NIH Trial to Assess Chelation…
July 1, 2009
Earlier this year, I wrote about Senator Tom Harkin's attempt to hijack President Obama's health care reform plans in order to inject quackery in the form of "alternative" or "integrative" medicine into the effort. Specifically, he wants to legitimize quackery by including it in any federal plan…
July 1, 2009
Remember Sharyl Attkisson?
She's the CBS reporter who can really bring home the crazy when it comes to vaccines and autism, laying down some serious crankery (complete with many logical fallacies) and hit pieces on Dr. Paul Offit. Indeed, at times she gives Mike Adams a run for his money when it…
June 30, 2009
I waited.
I knew it was coming. It had to. History was on my side. My quarry was nutty, but in a way exceedingly predictable. it wasn't so much that I knew exactly what he would do. He wasn't predictable in that way. It was that I knew he would do something crazy. Actually, on second thought, I did…
June 29, 2009
On Friday, I posted a plea for donations to the JREF effort to help poor families vaccinate their children against childhood diseases.
Over the weekend DuWayne Brayton did me one better with his plea:
I have been where a lot of those families are. While $25 may not seem like a hell of a lot to most…
June 29, 2009
This is just a brief followup to my post this morning about yesterday's NYT article on cancer research. An excellent discussion of the NYT article can be found here (and is well worth reading in its entirety). In it, Jim Hu did something I should have done, namely check the CRISP database in…
June 29, 2009
A couple of weeks ago, NEWSWEEK science columnist Sharon Begley wrote an article entitled From Bench To Bedside: Academia slows the search for cures. It was a rather poorly argued bit of polemic, backed up only with anecdotes that came across as sour grapes by scientists whose grant proposals the…
June 27, 2009
If you had the choice between the "standard" option for insurance or the naturopathic option, which would you choose?
(Click to see the full cartoon; it's a bit old. But I hadn't seen it before; so it's new to me.)
Of course, this is the very reason alt-med boosters don't want anyone to have to…
June 26, 2009
If there's one thing that I've found that's simultaneously gratifying and somewhat infuriating over the last year or so, it's that the skeptical movement has finally really noticed that anti-vaccination movement in a big way. Those of us who've been on the blogospheric front lines for the last few…
June 26, 2009
I have a love-hate relationship with Mike Adams.
Mike Adams, regular readers of this blog, is the "intellectual force" between that repository of quackery and sheer lunacy, NaturalNews.com. I hate him because he is a vile human being who cheerfully promotes bogus therapies on his website. (You know…
June 25, 2009
Unfortunately, I saw this coming, although I had thought that it might be a few more months. Farrah Fawcett has lost her three year battle with anal cancer:
Farrah Fawcett, an actress and television star whose good looks and signature flowing hairstyle influenced a generation of women and bewitched…
June 25, 2009
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the reason for Apple CEO Steve Job's five month medical leave of absence from Apple is that he needed a liver transplant, which, according to the story, he underwent a couple of months ago in Memphis. In my discussion, I assumed, for the most…
June 24, 2009
The other day, I came across an update on the Daniel Hauser saga. Specifically, I commented about how he is not only undergoing the chemotherapy ordered by his doctors. As you may recall, Hauser is a 13-year-old boy who, after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and undergoing one round of…
June 24, 2009
At the risk of repeating myself (but, then, since when did such concerns ever stop me before?), I'll just start out by mentioning that, of all the non-herbal "alternative" medicine remedies out there, I used to give a bit of a pass to acupuncture. No, I never did buy any of that nonsense about how…
June 23, 2009
Last week, I wrote about the FDA's warning about the zinc-containing "homeopathic" cold remedy known as Zicam. Basically, Zicam was approved without testing to show it to be both safe and efficacious because it slipped in using an old 1938 law that allows homeopathic remedies to bypass the usual…
June 23, 2009
Over the last month or so, I've written numerous posts about Daniel Hauser. Danny, as you recall, is the 13-year-old Minnesota boy who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma back in February, underwent one round of chemotherapy for it, and then decided that he wanted to pursue quackery instead of…
June 22, 2009
It's no secret that, when it comes to computers, my preferred axe has been the Apple Macintosh. Indeed, back in the 1983-1984 school year I was in college living in a house with five other guys, and one of my roommates was a a total Apple geek. He had, as one might expect, an Apple IIe, and I…
June 21, 2009
This reminds me of my trip to England two years ago, when my wife and I did visit Stonehenge:
However, what I'd really love is to have the title this guy has:
Druid King Arthur Pendragon told the BBC shortly before sunrise: "It's a very nice atmosphere and everything's fine at the moment.
"There…
June 20, 2009
Homeopathy Awareness Week is almost over, alas. I hope I've done a good job at making my readers even more "aware" of just how silly the principles of homeopathy are. To finish up, I thought I'd repost a bit of "classic insolence" from three years ago, because it's dedicated to one of the most…
June 19, 2009
With Homeopathy Awareness Week rapidly approaching its end, I wondered just what I could do to bring further "awareness" of just how bogus and full of woo the concepts of homeopathy are. True, discussing homeopathic plutonium as a remedy and how homeopaths did "provings" of it the other day was fun…
June 18, 2009
Don't forget to get your fortnight's dose of skepticism right here, as The Unincredible Hallq serves up the latest Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. It's another tasty concoction of skepticism, critical thinking, and science.
Next up on July 2 will be a newcomer and first time host, Homologous Legs…
June 18, 2009
Last night, I was sitting on the couch, my laptop, appropriately enough, on my lap creating my paean to Homeopathy Awareness Week in which I had a little fun discussing homeopathic plutonium. Because Homeopathy Awareness week is not yet over, I'll probably have one more bit of fun at the expense…
June 17, 2009
Will wonders never cease? A recent story about how "homeopathic" Zicam managed to slide through a loophole in which the FDA doesn't require evidence of efficacy or safety for medicines labeled as homeopathic has been percolating through the blogosphere based on a recent warning that the FDA issued…
June 17, 2009
In keeping with Homeopathy Awareness Week (which still runs until June 21), I can't resist commenting on this gem of a story that was sent to me the other day. I mean, we're talking super duper heaving shopping in the very heart of London. It turns out that the Helios Homeopathy Shop right in…
June 16, 2009
When it comes to antivaccinationists, The Onion, as for most things, nails it.
Don't vaccinate not because science shows no link between vaccines and autism but rather because, you know, Jenny McCarthy has some really convincing anecdotes.
When antivaccine loons are the butt of jokes on The Onion…
