alternative medicine
palmd | March 16, 2009Thankfully, I don't receive all that much blog-related mail. But this weekend I received several communications about a piece in popular liberal blog. The piece is (ostensibly) about Lyme disease, which coincidentally happens to be one of the topics of my first post here at SBM. In fact, I've written about Lyme disease a number of times, and Dr. Novella has a very good summary of the controversy at one of his other blogs. Since we've discussed this so many times, I won't be reviewing the entire controversy, but looking at this particular blog post to examine how our personal experiences…
palmd | March 11, 2009It's not like we haven't had this discussion before. I have, on previous blogs, written about the fantasy that is reiki, as have my colleagues. In fact, the very same colleague turned me on to a recent news piece out of Cleveland. Here's my problem with reiki---it's bullshit, pure and simple.
"But how can you be so dismissive?," a credulous reader might ask. My answer comes in two parts.
Absurdist ridiculousity
OK, so I made up that phrase---which is exactly what I have in common with the founder of reiki. In 1922 Mikao Usui (JSG) fasted on a mountaintop in Japan and "received" the…
amillikan | March 6, 2009After complaining during a U.S. Senate hearing that the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine he spearheaded wasn't yielding results that validated such practices, Senator Tom Harkin (D–IA) is facing the backlash of his statements from ScienceBloggers. Many of the alternative medicine practices Harkin advocates have already been subject to the thorough scrutiny of the NIH and other scientific institutions, which failed to find convincing evidence that these practices are beneficial compared with placebos and with established medical practices. Many have questioned whether…
terrasig | March 5, 2009Chris Mooney just asked the question as to why sci/med bloggers are up in arms about Sen Tom Harkin's recent complaints about the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the arm of NIH charged with funding studies to investigate the mechanisms and efficacy of modalities not currently considered mainstream medicine. I left a comment for Chris that ended up being a blog post so I'll share it with Terra Sig readers here and expound a bit for good measure.
The problem is that Harkin has stated that the establishment is discriminating against alternative medicine and…
palmd | March 5, 2009This is a cross-post from Science-Based Medicine. Go there! --PalMD
There are many ways in which cult medicine believers try to insinuate themselves into the health care system. As Dr. Gorski has pointed out, "prevention" is one of their metaphorical feet in the door. The cult medicine literature often says things like, "mainstream medicine is fine for treating acute illness, but what we do is prevention." What they often leave out is the question of what "prevention" means, what the data on prevention is, and how to properly approach prevention. It's likely that one of my co-editors…
palmd | March 3, 2009The blogosphere is doing a reasonably good job of covering this, but I'm still fuming over Senator Tom Harkin's (D-IA) health care policy hearings. Each morsel of the hearing contains more idiocy than the last. In my attempt to shed some light into Harkin's guano-filled cave, I'm going to examine some of the specific testimony, starting with that of Dr. Dean Ornish.
Medicine today focuses primarily on drugs and surgery, genes and germs, microbes and molecules, but we are so much more than that.
When I hear statements like this, my bullshit detector asplodes. Sure, it's only one sentence…
oracknows | March 3, 2009Yesterday, I wrote about Senator Tom Harkin's (D-IA) little woo-fest in the Senate's Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which he called Integrative Care: A Pathway to a Healthier Nation. I and a lot of the rest of the medical blogosphere (such as PalMD, Val Jones, and Tufted Titmouse) shook our heads in disbelief and disgust at Harkin's statement (video here) about the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM):
One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has…
palmd | March 1, 2009Remember when President Obama said something about returning science to it's rightful place? Well, our new president has a real tough climb ahead of him. The previous administration shoved science aside for political expediency and religious ideology. Now, forces in the president's own party are trying to insert their own quasi-religious beliefs into health care reform, leaving science in a whole different place altogether.
Here's the deal. Some years back, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) helped set up the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The whole idea of…
terrasig | February 19, 2009The complicity of revered academic institutions in the promotion of pseudoscience today takes another step forward.
The University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP), known formerly as the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (PCP&S), will bestow an honorary Doctor(ate) of Science on John A Borneman, III, to celebrate their Founders' Day.
From the university press release:
Borneman has spent his lifetime committed to the development and regulation of homeopathic medicine within the United States. He is the third of four generations of "John Bornemans" to attend the Philadelphia…
terrasig | February 16, 2009I could write a post every other week, at minimum, on dietary supplements adulterated with prescription drugs - against federal law, but easy to do with bulk pharmaceuticals available from overseas and no independent product purity oversight.
But here's a new one from the Key West Citizen:
Acupuncturist arrestedAn acupuncturist who operates a business on Duck Avenue was arrested Thursday on three
felony charges. Ashley Hoyt, 45, was charged with fraud/impersonation and two counts of obtaining a controlled substance through forgery.
Hoyt operates her business Ashley Hoyt Inc. at 3420 Duck Ave…
palmd | February 8, 2009It's generally a bad idea to assault the religious beliefs of your friends, neighbors, and relatives. That being said, sometimes it's unavoidable. My being Jewish is hard for some people, who feel that just by being me, I am denying their Lord and delaying His return (and before you start tossing No True Scotsmans at me, this has indeed happened more than once). Still, unless someone is directly pestering me with their religion (you know, by posthumously baptizing my grandma or something), I leave them be.
But what about quasi-religious beliefs? A great deal of alternative medicine is…
palmd | February 4, 2009So I was checking out my incomming links on sitemeter and I found a great one. You see, fake diseases alway bring out the wackos.
This is the thing about medical wackos. Not only do they think that they have diseases that no real doctor thinks exists, but they think everyone else must have it, too.
Niels, a guy who I've had to ban before for hostile comment spam, and whose designation on his own board is, appropriately, "Ultimate Member", has this to say about my back woes:
this time, i believe karma has already taught him the lesson he needs to learn (sounds like he has lyme disease...…
palmd | February 4, 2009So, what's up with low back pain? Well, here's what's up with mine:
To quote from The Book of Pal:
Just below the L4-L5 disc, behind L5 vertebral body on the
right side, there is evidence of a large extradural soft tissue density
measuring approximately 1.5 x 0.8 cm in its maximum vertical and
anteroposterior dimensions respectively. This has the appearance of a large
extruded disc fragment within the epidural space, compromising the right L5
nerve root.
And we say, "Amen."
An MRI of the lumbar spine consists of hundreds of images; I've pulled one out for you. It turns out that science is…
terrasig | February 2, 2009I've been having this 3:30 am (EST) insomnia for about the last two months, so I often pull the laptop up and survey the blogosphere in the still of the night. A simple look at the Last 24 Hours at ScienceBlogs and elsewhere in the blogosphere tells me that some knuckleheads in the mainstream press have taken issue with Dr Jill Biden, doctor of education, using the honorific, "Dr."
Keep in mind that the article in question comes from the L.A. Times - the very same paper that graces my e-mail account weekly humping their fishwrapper's science and environment coverage. I did just look up some…
palmd | February 2, 2009One of the frequent complaints I hear about real medicine is that it is dangerous. Of course, it's true---so is riding in a train, but it sure beats walking. And that's the danger of this particular fallacy---yes, medicine is a sharp tool, but it's also an effective tool, so we must use it properly. And this is where the tools of evidence- and science-based medicine can give us a hand.
The potential harms of modern medicine must be approached carefully. If they are ignored or approached in an ineffective way, we'll miss an opportunity to save lives. This comment is typical of the type of…
palmd | February 2, 2009I gotta admit that I just don't get it. Perhaps it's my overly narrow world-view, or perhaps it's my lack of imagination, but I really don't get it. Let me explain.
I've got this horrid pain in my back and leg. It's searing, aching, gnawing. My foot is numb, but still hurts. It tingles, feels heavy, and it's weak. Sometimes it feels like electricity is jumping through it, sometimes like little worms are crawling in it. Being a curious person, I look for ways to explain this.
I'm sure this horrid crawling feeling could be explained thusly:
Perhaps there are actual worms crawling…
terrasig | January 28, 2009This article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal has led me to revisit and repost an old essay I had at the old place on 6 January 2006. The article addresses Oscillococcinum, an extract of the liver and heart of the Muscovy duck that is diluted so many times that, thankfully, it contains no duck organs but only water, and is then packaged into degradable beads. This product is sold by the French company, Boiron, to prevent colds and flu and you can find this stuff sold at Whole Foods and other "health" stores. There is even a children's product by the same name but I have no idea how one…
palmd | January 26, 2009It's true that words matter, and that we who practice real medicine have often let cult medicine practitioners get the linguistic high ground. We've let them get away with calling non-science-based practices "alternative" and "complementary", without really asking, "alternative to what?" or "does it really "complement, or just distract?" We've often ignored language, and when we don't, we are accused of being pedantic, of focusing on "rhetoric" rather than "real" issues. Language is powerful. There is no such thing as "it's just a word".
Language is even more important in the fight…
palmd | January 22, 2009I've written quite a bit of the need for good health reporting, and I've had the good fortune to talk to some terrific reporters. But bad reporters are easy to come by, which is kind of sad, especially since jobs are getting scarce.
When this article came across my browser, something looked familiar. The Stamford (CT) Advocate has shown up on my blog before. The last time, it was an article about a naturopath preying on immigrants. When I saw a new story pop up, I was sure it would be the same reporter. The article is locked in the archives, so it took some searching, but I eventually…
palmd | January 20, 2009Make no little plans; they have no power to stir men's blood.
---Daniel Burnham
The last eight years have seen subtle and not-so subtle predations on the practice of medicine. Will the new administration be able to promote the kind of change we need? Let's review some of the challenges facing the Obama administration.
Ethical apocalypse
Bush's evisceration of the Constitution of the United States has affected health care professionals. For example, the military has likely always used psychologists to assist with interrogations, but the last eight years has seen a huge increase in the…