Homeopathy
oracknows | May 8, 2012I tend to get lost in complexity from time to time.
I know, big surprise to my regular readers, but I suppose it's a good thing that at least I know that this is a weakness of mine. Indeed, it must be part and parcel of my seeming tendency to produce epic posts of ridiculous length that sometimes surpass 5,000 words, although, in all fairness, my average post length is probably less than 2,000 words, which is still too long for many people but not beyond the pale. Of course, part of the reason for this is that I like to leave no stone unturned. In particular, I tend to like to make my…
oracknows | April 16, 2012Periodically, I like to make fun of homeopathy and homeopaths. I realize that to some that might seem like the proverbial shooting of fish in a barrel, but it is amusing and educational. However, it's not always amusing. For instance, I am not amused when I see The One Quackery To Rule Them All (my favored term for homeopathy these days) being used either in areas where a lack of treatment can result in great harm (and, given that homeopathy is nothing more than water shaken up a bit with a magic spell, that's what homeopathy is, a lack of treatment) or when I see homeopaths promising what…
oracknows | April 15, 2012If there's one difference between so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) and science-based medicine (SBM), it's the role of anecdotes in each. CAM and SBM each take a very different view of anecdotes. In SBM, anecdotes are relegated to a very low rung on the evidence ladder. They are a starting point in that, if well-documented enough and convincing enough, they can serve as the basis to suggest that clinical research or clinical trials might be indicated. Sometimes, in the case of rare diseases where numbers of patients are so small that randomized clinical trials are not…
oracknows | April 12, 2012Proof. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
That thought kept running through my mind as I perused an article appearing on an antivaccine website. Another thought that rant through my mind is that this was clearly not a scientist of any sort speaking. In science, in general, we don't speak of "proof." We speak of evidence and experimentation. Lawyers speak of proof, as in "proof beyond a reasonable doubt." Scientists speak of evidence in shades of gray, because most evidence is on a continuum. Besides, the article asked the question, "Has 'science based…
oracknows | February 20, 2012
Like many geeks, I enjoy The Big Bang Theory. I know, I know, you're shocked to hear that, but it's true. I've seen nearly every episode since the first season. Over the last couple of seasons, the male-centric show has been considerably improved by its move towards more of an ensemble cast that includes two new female characters: Bernadette Rostenkowski, played by Melissa Rauch, who is Howard's girlfriend, and Amy Farrah Fowler, played by Mayim Bialik, who is Sheldon's girlfriend. Both characters are smart and in many ways as geeky as the guys, but in a different way.
Oddly enough, I…
oracknows | February 5, 2012It's amazing how fast six months can pass, isn't it? Well, almost six months, anyway, as it was five and a half months ago that I wrote about a particularly execrable example of quackademic medicine in the form of a study that actually looked at an "energy healing" modality known as "energy chelation" as a treatment for cancer chemotherapy-induced fatigue. Actually, the study design itself wasn't so bad, leaving aside the utter ludicrousness of the concept of "energy chelation." Rather, it was how the authors spun interpreted their results that set my head spinning. Surprisingly, a letter to…
oracknows | January 24, 2012If there's one thing about homeopaths, it's that they're indefatigable in their dedication to their unique brand of pseudoscience. They're also endlessly protean in their ability to induce their explanations for how homeopathy is supposed to "work" to evolve into endless forms not so beautiful. If it's not the claim that "like cures like" is some sort of immutable law of nature or that diluting a remedy somehow makes it stronger, it's pivoting to the claim that water has "memory." If it's not that, then homeopaths and homeopathy apologists invoke quantum entanglement that somehow works at the…
oracknows | January 17, 2012I had been planning on either discussing a study or analyzing another cancer cure testimonial, but things have been (mostly) too serious around the ol' blog the last few days. What with depressing posts about the return of whooping cough thanks to antivaccine idiocy, more evidence that Andrew Wakefield is a despicable human being, and evidence that there are equally despicable ideas prevalent in "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), I was starting to enter one of my periodic periods of depression brought on by contemplating the sheer scope of human gullibility and stupidity. I…
oracknows | January 2, 2012I kind of miss Peter Lipson on ScienceBlogs and wish he were still around. I realize it's been nearly a year and a half since he departed, but it's been a bit lonely here being the only physician blogging about quackery, the role of science in medicine, and other skeptical topics related to medicine. This point was driven home when I happened to come across a post he wrote the other day entitled Another crack at medical cranks. In it, Dr. Lipson discusses one characteristic that allows medical cranks and quacks to attract patients, namely the ability to make patients feel wanted, cared for,…
oracknows | December 30, 2011Given that this is the last weekday before the end of 2011 and this quite probably will be my last post of the year (that is, unless something so compelling pops up over the weekend that it tempts me more than I can resist), I wondered what would be a good topic. Then, readers started sending me a link to the perfect topic, and I agreed that it represents a loose end that I should try to take care of before the year is up. So take care of it I will.
Right before Christmas, a homeopath named Judith Acosta, who bills herself as a "licensed psychotherapist, classical homeopath, and crisis…
oracknows | December 22, 2011The holidays are now upon us, but I can't resist having a bit of fun before I disappear for this year's Christmas weekend to visit family and catch a rare bit of relaxation. Nothing too heavy, but, equally important, nothing too fluffy either. One topic that fits the bill is anything to do with homeopathy, and in this case I have a doozy of a "teachable moment relevant to homeopathy. It appeared a couple of days ago in what I like to refer to as that wretched hive of scum and quackery or Arianna's happy home for quacks. Yes, I'm referring to The Huffington Post, or, as a lot of people…
oracknows | December 2, 2011I'm a cancer surgeon and have been since I finished my fellowship nearly 13 years ago. That is, of course, one big reason that, after I found myself drifting towards becoming a skeptic, it didn't take long for me to take an interest in "alternative medicine," in particular alternative medicine for cancer. Perhaps that's why I went a little bit crazy on Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski earlier this week for his "antineoplaston" therapy and his clinic's harassment of critical bloggers. As a result of that incident, I decided to keep my eye out even more than usual for clinics, websites, or practitioners…
oracknows | October 26, 2011As hard as it is to believe, I've been a physician for 23 years now and a fully trained surgeon for over 15 years. If there's one thing I've learned in that time, it's most doctors really, really don't like to be told what to do. I don't know if part of it comes from all the long years of medical school and residency, with fellowship tacked on for many, during which we're relentlessly told what to do by more senior residents, fellows, and attendings or if it has something to do with the personality traits that lead young people to go into medicine, particularly surgery. It's probably a little…
oracknows | October 4, 2011He's ba-ack.
Has it really only been two weeks? A mere two weeks since everybody's favorite advocate of The One Quackery to Rule Them All promised the woo-friendly readers of the "health" section of that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post that he would "provide further specific evidence of the unscientific attitude and actions from those individuals and organizations who are leading the campaign against homeopathy." Like pretty much every skeptic who's made any sort of name for himself, no matter how minor, in having fun taking down the pseudoscientific nonsense known as…
oracknows | August 31, 2011It's one of those things that can't be repeated too many times, but homeopathy is ridiculous. In fact, so ridiculous is homeopathy that I don't usually write about it all that often. The reason is that, like homeopathic dilutions, a bit of skeptical blogging about homeopathy goes a long, long way (although I'm not sure whether diluting the blogging makes it stronger). True, anti-vaccine ideas are often just as ridiculous, but they're also dangerous to children, which is why I'll sometimes write about nothing but anti-vaccine nonsense for several days in a row. Homeopathy, on the other hand,…
oracknows | August 24, 2011One of the things that distinguishes evidence-based medicine (EBM) and science-based medicine (SBM) is how the latter takes into account prior probability that a therapy is likely to work when considering clinical trials. My favorite example to demonstrate this difference, because it's so stark and obvious, is homeopathy. Homeopathy, as regular readers of this blog no doubt know by now, is a mystical, magical system of medicine based on two principles. The first is the law of similars, commonly phrased as "like cures like"; i.e., the way to treat symptoms is to use a smaller amount of…
oracknows | July 28, 2011Once upon a time, there was quackery. It was the term used to refer to medical practices that were not supported by evidence and were ineffective and potentially harmful. Physicians understood that modalities such as homeopathy, reflexology, and various "energy healing" (i.e., faith healing) methodologies were based either on prescientific vitalism, magical thinking, and/or on science that was at best incorrect or grossly distorted. More importantly, they weren't afraid to say so.
Quacks did not think this good.
Then, sometime a few decades ago, supporters of quackery decided that they would…
oracknows | July 6, 2011What did the poor Haitians ever do to deserve this?
Think about it. A year and a half ago, they suffered through an enormous earthquake that will take them decades, maybe even a lifetime, to recover from fully; that is, if they ever do recover from it fully. Since then, they've received massive amounts of international aid, which is good. What's not so good is that, along with that aid have come a bunch of quacks. I first noticed the incursion of the quackiest of quacks, namely homeopaths, into Haiti only a couple of weeks after the quake. This group of homeopaths was patterned after the…
oracknows | July 1, 2011I know I've said it many, many times before, but it's something that, in my opinion at least, can't be repeated too often. Homeopathy is ridiculous. Arguably, it's the most ridiculous of "alternative" therapies ever conceived. And that's saying a lot. After all, among "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or "integrative medicine" (IM), we have therapies in which people claim that they can tap into some sort of "universal source" and channel it into you for healing effect (reiki, a.k.a. faith healing based on Eastern mysticism instead of Christian beliefs); they can change the flow…
oracknows | June 27, 2011It's grant crunch time, as the submission deadline for revised R01s is July 5. However, in a classic example of how electronic filing has actually made things more difficult, the grant has to be done and at the university grant office a week before the deadline if it is to be uploaded in time. So, my beloved Orac-philes, I'm afraid it's reruns again today, but, benevolent blogger that I am, I'll again post two about the same topic. Since I recently reran a really old post that started it all, I thought I'd follow up with the two additional posts about the same topic. This one is from 2006,…