medicine
oracknows | October 16, 2015If there's one thing I've been consistent about, it's that, however ridiculous all the other woo I routinely discuss here is—homeopathy, reiki, reflexology, I'm talking to you and your friends—herbal medicine and supplements might have value because they might have a physiological effect that is beneficial in treating or preventing disease. Of course, if that's the case, it's because the herb or supplement contains chemicals that act as drugs. They're "dirty" drugs in that they are mixed with all sorts of other substances in the herb or supplement that might or might not have effects, which…
pharyngula | October 15, 2015
Sadly, a young man in England has been diagnosed with stage IV cancer -- and he really is an atheist in a metaphorical foxhole, and it hasn't changed his opinion of religion.
Between now and last Wednesday I’ve worried about various things, but one thought that stands out is religion. Before I go into more depth, I’ll stress that I’m an atheist. Religion, the way I see it, is a reactionary and backward tendency that has stood alongside man throughout history, yet has always blinded communities and corrupted rational thought. As society has advanced, so has our depth of knowledge and…
oracknows | October 15, 2015Oh, no, Nature. Not you. Not again.
It wasn't enough that you were busted shilling for traditional Chinese medicine with a big, glossy advertising supplement a few years ago. I thought you had learned your lesson after that, as you didn't do it again. Maybe I was wrong. Granted, your offense this time is not quite as bad as accepting cash from Saishunkan Pharmaceutical Co., ltd. and the Kitasato University Oriental Medicine Research Center to put together what was in essence pure propaganda for quackery, but, on the other hand, I do have to be worried that you might be thinking of backsliding…
oracknows | October 14, 2015One of the more depressing topics that I regularly write about includes of analyses of news stories of children with cancer whose parents decided to stop science-based treatment (usually the chemotherapy) and use quackery instead. There are, of course, variations on this theme, but these stories take form that generally resembles this outline: A child is diagnosed with a highly treatable cancer with an excellent cure rate. Standard science-based treatment is begun, but the child suffers severe side effects from the chemotherapy. After an incomplete course of chemotherapy, the parents, alarmed…
oracknows | October 13, 2015When last I discussed the cruel sham that is the tide of "right-to-try" laws that has been flowing through state legislatures to become law over the last year and a half. "Right-to-try" laws, as I pointed out when I first noted the earliest ones being promoted in Colorado, Louisiana, Arizona, and Missouri, referring to them as Dallas Buyers Club bills based on their seeming inspiration from that movie and pointing out how they are very, very bad policy that, contrary to the claims of its proponents, are far more likely to harm patients than help them. In every state in which such bills have…
oracknows | October 11, 2015Last week, in response to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Chinese scientist Youyou Tu, who isolated Artemisinin and validated it as a useful treatment for malaria back in the 1970s, I pointed out that the discovery was a triumph of natural products pharmacology, not of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). So did Scott Gavura, a pharmacist who blogs at my favorite other blog, Science-Based Medicine, who also emphasized that the path from TCM remedy for fever to pill used to treat malaria was the very model of how pharmacologists isolate medicines from plants.…
oracknows | October 9, 2015Over the years, I've frequently made the points that the vast majority of physicians are not scientists and, in fact, that many of them suffer from a severe case of Dunning-Kruger when it comes to science. Even going back to the very early history of this blog, you can find examples, the most common of which seemed to be physicians denying evolution and embracing creationism. Of these, the doctor I wrote about most frequently back in the day was the creationist neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, but with the onset of the 2016 Presidential race there's been a new creationist neurosurgeon in town with…
oracknows | October 8, 2015Yesterday, I wrote about the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Youyou Tu, who, after screening 2,000 herbal treatments from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for anti-malaria activity, finally discovered Artemisinin. She isolated it from the plant in which it is found, using modern chemistry to isolate it, purify it, and later chemically modify it to make it more active against malaria. Tu deserved the Nobel Prize for her years of screening. As I pointed out, contrary to how the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Tu is being spun, it is not a validation of TCM, but rather of…
oracknows | October 7, 2015Earlier this week, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Youyou Tu for her discovery of the anti-malaria compound Artemisinin, as well as to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their discovery of a novel therapy for roundworm. Artemisinin, as some of you might know, is a compound derived from traditional Chinese medicine, which is why, to my irritation, it didn't take long for headlines like How traditional Chinese medicine finally won its Nobel Prize, What the 2015 Nobel Prizes mean for traditional Chinese medicine, and A Medical Breakthrough Made Possible By Ancient…
oracknows | October 5, 2015Anger is an energy, as a certain old punk sang back in the 1980s. It can even be a great motivator, such as when anger overtakes us for injustice or over crimes. Anger, however, is not a particularly good intellectual tool, nor does it help in analyzing science.
Which reminds me: J.B. Handley is back.
You have to be a bit of a long time reader—OK, a really long time reader—to remember that Mr. Handley's antics used to be a regular topic of this blog. After all, he and his wife were the founders of a long-standing antivaccine group, Generation Rescue. It was an antivaccine group founded on the…
oracknows | September 30, 2015Naturopathy is quackery.
I like to start most, if not all, posts about naturopathy with that simple statement. The reasons are simple. First, it's true. Second, most people—including doctors—are unaware of this simple fact. Finally, it irritates naturopaths and their fans. It also has the benefit of setting the tone I want to convey whenever I hear about naturopathy being granted the appearance of academic legitimacy by being embraced by a real academic medical institution. Such were my thoughts when I was made aware of this press release entitled SCNM Offers Dual-Degree Program for Master's…
oracknows | September 29, 2015One of the limitations constraining those of us who do human subjects research is that ethical considerations often prevent us from designing our clinical trials in what would be, from a strictly scientific standpoint, in the most methodologically rigorous way. For example, we can't intentionally infect human beings with known inocula of deadly bacteria in order to cause a reproducible severity of disease to be treated with a new antibiotic.
One thing that antivaccinationists seem unable to understand is this very point with respect to vaccine trials. They will call for a "vaxed versus…
oracknows | September 29, 2015I've spent a lot of time in Cleveland. Indeed, I lived there for eight years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during which time I completed my surgery residency training, completed my PhD, and, even more importantly, met and married my wife. Even though I haven't lived there for nearly 20 years—I can't believe it's been that long—I still have an affinity for the city, which is perhaps why I've had a tendency to come down hard on venerable Cleveland medical institutions that turn to quackademic medicine, one where I trained (I'm talking to you, University Hospitals of Cleveland) and one…
oracknows | September 28, 2015A week ago, I noted that one of the stranger and less credible conspiracy theories promulgated by quacks and their believers was still going strong nearly three months after the first death that triggered it, the death of autism quack Jeff Bradstreet, apparently by suicide. Basically, three months ago, Dr. Bradstreet, who has long been a fixture in the "autism biomed" movement and a frequent speaker at autism quackfests like Autism One, was found dead in a river from a gunshot wound to the chest, an apparent suicide. A recent story about the investigation into Dr. Bradstreet's death included…
oracknows | September 25, 2015Yesterday, I wrote about how pediatric neurosurgeon turned presidential candidate Ben Carson is an excellent example demonstrating how the vast majority of physicians and surgeons, even highly accomplished ones admired as being at the top of their professions, are not scientists and how many of them are disturbingly prone to buying into pseudoscience. In Dr. Carson's case, that tendency to believe in pseudoscience derives from his fundamentalist religion that led him to reject evolution and accept arguments against evolution every bit as ignorant as the ones Kent Hovind or Ken Ham serves up…
oracknows | September 24, 2015Early in the history of this blog, I had a running gag that I'd use every now and then. Basically, it involved humorously extravagant descriptions of how I wanted to hide my face behind a paper bag in sheer embarrassment at the antics of fellow physicians, particularly fellow surgeons. Over time, the gag evolved to my expressing a mock desire to hide my visage behind a metal Doctor Doom-style mask, again, over sheer embarrassment over the idiocy of my colleagues about a scientific issue, again, usually evolution. Sadly, creationist physicians are a very common source of such embarrassment,…
oracknows | September 23, 2015Our military veterans deserve the best medical care our nation can offer. Actually, I'd say they're owed it, actually. After all, many of them put themselves in harm's way for this country. Others have suffered grievous injury with permanent sequelae. Still others have paid the ultimate price. For those who served, the least we as a nation should be expected to provide, to me at least, is high quality medical care, particularly for service-related injuries and illnesses. Unfortunately, besides the usual problems of inadequate resources devoted to veteran care, other forces are conspiring to…
oracknows | September 22, 2015Antivaccine quackery is arguably one of the worst forms of quackery. First, the pseudoscientific beliefs undergirding such quackery are based on the fear and demonization of one of the greatest medical advances in the history of the human race, the result of which are children left unprotected against preventable diseases that routinely used to populate cemeteries with little bodies. Almost as bad, one of those beliefs, namely the scientifically discredited belief that vaccines cause autism, has led to a cottage industry of quack "treatments" based on the idea that autism is a manifestation…
oracknows | September 20, 2015Ever since late June, I've been intermittently taking note of a new conspiracy theory in the alternative medicine world. It began when notorious autism quack Jeff Bradstreet, one of the longest practicing, most prominent purveyors of the scientifically discredited notion that vaccines cause autism, was found dead in a North Carolina river on June 19. The police rapidly concluded that he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. It was impossible not to note that the FDA had raided his clinic a few days before, and it later came out that it was due to his use of and unproven…
oracknows | September 18, 2015Homeopathy is a frequent topic on this blog, for reasons that regular readers no doubt understand all too well by now. Homeopathy is, as I like to call it, again borrowing from Tolkien, The One Quackery To Rule Them All. When it comes to quackery, few can even come close to homeopathy for the sheer ridiculousness of its precepts. Whether it is the Law of Similars, which claims that to cure a disease you need to use a substance that cause's that diseases symptoms in healthy people, a "law" that has no basis in science, or the Law of Infinitesimals, which postulates that serially diluting a…