alternative medicine
oracknows | August 14, 2012Over 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 to believe in the therapy, dedicate yourself completely to it, in order for it to work. Of course, as I've also mentioned before, it is that insistence on belief and total commitment shared by religion and alternative medicine…
oracknows | August 10, 2012As the last full weekday of my vacation passes, I thought about whether I'd bother to post anything or not, given that I happen to be traveling. After yesterday's post, the subject of which was profoundly depressing to me because I hate it when quacks take cynical advantage of a grieving family to promote their antivaccine agenda, I thought I'd post something a bit more positive.
Nearly a month ago, I attended TAM, presenting there at one of the workshops and taking part in a panel discussion of "integrative medicine" (i.e., "integrating" quackery with real medicine). Leaving aside the…
oracknows | July 17, 2012Things are getting back to normal here at Casa Orac. it's always a come down after going to TAM and being able to mingle, argue, and party with people who share my skeptical world view. Yesterday was back to reality, though, at least as much as jet lag and sleep deprivation allowed. Fortunately, Monday is a lab day, and I don't have an scheduled patient care responsibilities, and now I'm pretty much back to normal. Even so, I can't do epics like yesterday's post every day even under the best circumstances; so today I'll take a look at a little wafer thin mint to cleanse the palate.
I've…
terrasig | May 26, 2010Regular readers know that I hold equivocal views of the broad area of dietary supplements, particularly botanical supplements. On one hand, I have seen some great new compounds come from the systematic investigation of herbal and fungal concoctions to the point that 25% of prescription drugs are derived from natural products. On the other hand, some corners of the dietary supplement industry are little more than turn-of-the-last-century snake oil operations, with offenses so egregious that even their own trade associations try to distance themselves from those who adulterate, mislabel, and…
oracknows | April 22, 2010It's good to be home.
True, while I was away for five days, first to NECSS and then to the AACR Meeting, mail piled up, and I had to go through it last night. Also, just for the heck of it, my wife and I went out to dinner at a local diner. Finally, to complete the unwinding process, last night I sat on my posterior and watched a couple of shows that I had missed during my absence, while lazily searching the web for material to get me back into the blogging thing. Yes, I know I spent a fair amount of verbiage yesterday taking down a mountain of burning stupid by everybody's favorite science…
oracknows | March 25, 2010I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm not really a political blogger. True, I do from time to time succumb to the blogger's temptation of being a pundit on current events or pontificating on politics, but in general I don't do that very often because political bloggers are a dime a dozen and politics isn't my area of strength. Writing about science and science-based medicine is. That's part of the reason why I really haven't said much about the massive health care reform bill that was passed on Sunday or the political process, except when on occasion the utter insanity of it all (…
oracknows | March 1, 2010I've had it with Dr. Oz.
Although I haven't seen his show today (for one thing, I work for a living; for another thing, even if I had today off I wouldn't waste it watching Dr. Oz's show), readers have informed me that yesterday, on March 1, 2010, Dr. Oz threw away whatever shred of respectability that he had left. On March 1, 2010, Dr. Oz had Deepak Chopra on his show.
But that wasn't enough.
After all, Chopra is a never-ending font of woo in categories too numerous to recount here, a small subset of which includes evolution, neuroscience, and medicine, but most of his woo is is fairly "…
oracknows | February 9, 2010If 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 conditions for which SBM does not have any "magic bullet" treatments. Diabetes, heart disease, other chronic illnesses, SBM can manage them quite well, but it can't cure them. Then there are conditions that science doesn't understand very well, conditions like, for…
oracknows | January 31, 2010This may be a bit over the top, but it does rather point out what is in effect done when journalists lazily present "both sides" of issues that don't really have two sides, at least not two sides that are anywhere in the same universe as far as scientific validity:
I do rather think that they could have found a better example for "Western" versus "alternative" medicine. That part of the video was actually pretty dumb and, quite frankly, painfully unfunny. Come on! A Hulda Clark parody, where the alt-med practitioner claims that all cancer is caused by a liver fluke and that it can be cured…
terrasig | December 24, 2009. . .or a spread in Playgirl.
Huh?
Orac has a nice essay today for your Christmas Eve reading about a USA Today article yesterday by Liz Szabo that called out celebrities for their pseudoscientific proclamations and advice entitled, "Are celebrities crossing the line on medical advice?"
So that's where I came up with this thought: it would be great if some folks who talked science-based sense became celebrities so they'd at least have the same platform to counter people like Jenny McCarthy. On his comment thread, I suggested that we can only hope that Orac someday gets a movie deal and…
palmd | December 8, 2009Some time ago I issued a naturopath challenge in which I invited naturopaths to analyse a typical primary care problem. Today, I'd like to issue a broader challenge.
With health care reform in the works, it would be wise to look north (or in my case, south) to our Canadian neighbo(u)rs, but not for the reason you think. Assuming we are able to extend health insurance coverage to millions of more Americans, we will need primary care practitioners (PCPs) who can care for these new medical consumers. In Canada, legislation to deal with a shortage of PCPs by giving modest new powers to other…
palmd | December 2, 2009Remember the Zicam debacle? To catch you up, Zicam has been promoted for years as a "homeopathic cold remedy". It is of course neither. Since it contains measurable amounts of zinc, it isn't "homeopathic", and since there is no cure for the common cold, it's not a remedy. In addition to having neither of it's promoted qualities, the FDA has received hundreds of reports of people losing their sense of smell (became "anosmic") after using intranasal Zicam. As Steve Novella has pointed out, there is some scientific evidence pointing to a causal connection between zinc and anosmia. Now…
terrasig | November 26, 2009
Two weeks ago, Canadian Skeptics United published on their Skeptic North site a piece by an Ontario pharmacist criticizing a proposal by the province to grant limited prescribing rights to naturopaths. The essay, which was reprinted in the National Post on Tuesday, outlines the intellectual and practical conundrum presented by allowing those with education that diverges from science-based practices to prescribe drugs.
The naturopath lobby has come out in force and appears to be relatively unopposed in the 54 comments that follow, primarily because the NP closes comments 24 hours after online…
terrasig | November 8, 2009Yesterday, the real-life mailbox brought the Pharmboy household the Fall 2009 issue of DukeMedicine connect, a biannual publication on current news from the Duke University Health System. Produced by DUHS Marketing and Creative Services, it "strives to offer current news about health topics of interest" to its readers. This issue is not yet online but you can see the Spring 2009 issue here.
What caught my eye was a cover teaser titled "Detox Delusion" and an article on detoxification diets focusing on an interview with Beth Reardon a nutritionist with Duke Integrative Medicine.
(Note added…
terrasig | August 16, 2009
Artemisinin is a natural product isolated from the leaves of the annual wormwood, Artemisia annua. Used originally in Chinese herbal medicine, the pure compound is employed in Africa as an inexpensive antimalarial drug. In April, 2009, the multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis received FDA approval for a combination drug called Coartem®, comprised of the semi-synthetic artemisinin analog, artemether, and another novel antimalarial, lumefantrine.
An herbal preparation of artemesinin has recently been associated with a single case of hepatic injury as reported in this week's issue of…
terrasig | July 26, 2009In the United States, herbal and non-herbal dietary supplements can be sold without any assurance of safety or efficacy as a result of a hastily-passed, late-night, final-session piece of legislation put forth by Sen Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). (Aside: Utah has several large dietary supplement manufacturers.) This piece of legislation is named the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or DSHEA. A FAQ for consumers is provided by the US Food and Drug Administration here.
An unusual aspect of the law is that supplement manufacturers can make a variety of wellness or structure-function…
terrasig | July 1, 2009Judging from the press inquiries I've had since 5 am EDT today, expect today's focus in the Michael Jackson case to be on the anesthetic drug, propofol (Diprivan®).
Last evening, California nutritionist and registered nurse Ms Cherilyn Lee gave an interview to Campbell Brown on CNN (and this AP exclusive report) describing Michael Jackson's repeated requests of her for the intravenous sedative drug for his insomnia. She wisely rejected his requests, instead providing him with a vitamin and mineral "energy" injection called Myers' cocktail.
However, four days before Jackson's death she…
terrasig | June 25, 2009While I lack the intestinal fortitude of my colleague, Orac, who actively seeks out the most impressive examples of pseudoscience and quackery, examples come to me without even looking for them.
This week's case is in the form of a book announcement press release from a Denver-based "practitioner" who specializes in cosmetic acupuncture. Yes, the needle without the Botox®.
Martha Lucas, Ph.D., L.Ac., Denver-based acupuncturist and practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), has authored "Vanity Calamity: Your Guide to Cosmetic Acupuncture for Anti-aging." The announcement is made by…
terrasig | June 9, 2009As tipped off by Brother Orac this morning: from "60 pct of cancer patients try nontraditional med":
Some people who try unproven remedies risk only money. But people with cancer can lose their only chance of beating the disease by skipping conventional treatment or by mixing in other therapies. Even harmless-sounding vitamins and "natural" supplements can interfere with cancer medicines or affect hormones that help cancer grow.
This is mainstream sci/med journalism done right. Period.
terrasig | June 8, 2009Yet another hat tip this morning to anjou, a regular reader, commenter, and human RSS feed on all things cancer and alternative medicine (not to mention turning me on to Vanessa Hidary, the "Hebrew Mamita" spoken-word artist).
Last night anjou brought to me a superb AP Impact article, Alternative medicine goes mainstream, from medical writer Marilynn Marchione. I know that AP has been skewered as of late by various science bloggers but this particular article by Marchione is one of the best treatments I have seen in the last two years regarding the truth behind the alternative medicine…