News of the Weird

Naturopathy is a frequent topic on this blog because it is a veritable cornucopia of quackery, in which not pseudoscience is too out there. Homeopathy, functional medicine, bogus diagnostic tests, traditional Chinese medicine, reflexology, naturopaths embrace it all, and more. More importantly, thanks to "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), known more recently as "integrative medicine," naturopathy is becoming more and more "respectable." Indeed, there are naturopaths at far too many academic medical centers. One even participated in the writing of the Society for Integrative…

Regular readers here are probably familiar with Mike Adams and his website NaturalNews.com. Forget the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism, when it comes to wretched hives of scum and quackery on the Internet, NaturalNews is the wretchedest, scummiest, and quackiest. Not surprisingly, Adams got his start in wingnuttery selling Y2K scams nearly 18 years ago. Now, besides presiding over a scammy online publishing empire that racks in considerable green by publishing articles laced with quackery, antivaccine pseudoscience, character assassination, and thuggery, both legal and getting a bit too…

Over the weekend, a most unusual social media firestorm erupted in response to a blog post by Daniel Neides, MD, MBA, Acting Medical Director of the Tanya I. Edwards Center for Integrative Medicine, Vice Chair and Chief Operating Officer of Cleveland Clinic Wellness, as well as the Associate Director of Clinical Education for The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM), where he oversees all clinical activities during years three through five of the medical school. The reason for the social media uproar was that Dr Neides' post, entitled Make 2017 the year to avoid toxins (good…

I’m sure that most of you watched the Presidential debate on Monday night, just as I did. Over the years, these debates have always always painful for me to watch, given the candidates’ tendency to answer the question they want to answer rather than the question actually answered; to find ways to spew prepackaged talking points into answers, whether they’re related to the question or not; and, above all, to see how much spin they can get away with. Particularly annoying is when they pander to their base with particularly brain dead bon mots. Candidates from both parties do it, of course, but…

Believe it or not (and you probably won’t believe it), but I never intended to post today, as it’s a holiday, and I had to write my usual level post for my not-so-super-secret other blog. But then one of you had to send me this: I couldn’t resist at least a quick comment on this. That’s right. Kent Hovind, one of the world’s most famous young earth creationists and frauds (given that he went to jail for tax evasion) is marrying Marry Tocco, Michigan’s own most annoying antivaccinationist and someone about whom I’ve written several times, most recently in 2014. In the video, he goes on about…

A common criticism aimed at those of us who are highly critical of various alternative medicine treatments and, in particular, of the "integration" of such treatments into conventional medical treatment is: What's the harm? What, they ask, is the harm of homeopathy, acupuncture, iridology, or traditional Chinese medicine? They argue that it's pretty much harmless, or, to quote Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy about earth, harmless. Of course, fans of the novels know that Ford Prefect, a contributor to the guide, reacting to Earthling Arthur Dent's outrage that the entry for…

There are some antivaccine lies that just never die. Well, actually, most of them are very much like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger in that, just when you think you've killed them at the end of the latest confrontation, they always come back. Always. As an example of this, let's go back four months ago. Remember back in November when I discussed a particularly pernicious antivaccine lie that's been spread by Kenyan Catholic Bishops and the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association? It was the claim that the tetanus vaccine used to prevent neonatal tetanus in young women in Kenya…

Anyone who's read this blog knows my opinion of Mike Adams, the proprietor of the quack website known as NaturalNews.com. It is not favorable, to put it mildly. All you have to do to realize that is to type his name into the search box of this blog and see what comes up: Anger at his attacks on celebrities who have died of cancer; mockery of his pretending to be a scientist and attacking Jimmy Kimmel for "hate speech" about vaccines; alarm at his threats delivered with somewhat plausible deniability against scientists; further alarm at his "natural biopreparedness" and homeopathy for Ebola;…

This one's too brief to be worth a full Orac-ian deconstruction, but it's so juicy that I can't resist mentioning. Regular readers know that Mike Adams, the all-purpose crank who founded NaturalNews.com, is a frequent target topic on this blog. The reason is obvious. Whether it be his support of quackery, his rants against vaccines, his vile attacks on cancer patients, or his New World Order conspiracy mongering and support of the radical fringe in US politics, no one brings home the crazy quite like Mike Adams, and no one brings home such a wide variety and vast quantity of crazy, with the…

Remember California Bill AB 2109? I've written about it at least a couple of times before. In fact, for some reason, the comment section of this post on AB 2109 suddenly come alive again a couple of days ago, with antivaccinationists infiltrating it, much to the annoyance of my regular commenters. It turns out that the reason was that a couple of days ago AB 2109 came up for discussion in the California Senate Health Committee (and passed to be sent out to the full Senate for a vote), after having passed the California House a couple of months ago. I also now know why antivaccinationists…

When I saw the latest screed from that very living embodiment of crank magnetism, Mike Adams, I chuckled. I sent it around to some fellow skeptics, including, for instance, the crew at The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, as well as acquaintances and friends of mine because I couldn't believe it. Adams, as loony as he is, had topped himself. In the meantime, I couldn't decide whether or not to write about it, particularly after Steve Novella took a swipe at it. After all, there are things that are so loony, so out there, that one seriously has to worry about whether they are the result of…

You know, even though I haven't lived in Cleveland since 1996, sometimes I kind of miss Ohio. Here's the sort of reason why, via Balloon Juice: I thought it was a hoax at first, but it isn't. Just check out the the official website of the Governor of the State of Ohio if you don't believe me. I must admit a little chuckle of schadenfreude here.

Among the most bizarre and risible conspiracy theories currently going around, rising to the top (or near the top) has to be notion that President Obama was not actually born in the United States and therefore is not a U.S. citizen and not eligible to be President of the United States. Indeed, ever since the heat of the 2008 election, this particular unsinkable rubber duck of a conspiracy theory keeps getting slapped down by reason and evidence, only to rise to the surface again and again and again. It's truly a wingnut paradise, because, quite frankly, the people who passionately believe it…

Words fail me. How anyone can be so callous beggars imagination. Yeah, sure, Jennifer Petkov ultimately apologized, but only after news of her vileness was spread far and wide around the world. Worse, it was one of those "not-pologies" where Petkov said she was sorry "if anyone was hurt" not that she was sorry for having behaved despicably and thereby having caused that hurt, all topped off with an utterly lame and completely unbelievable lie that she "never really meant any ill wishes towards" Kathleen Edward or her family. And, yes, wearing the glasses was a nice obviously cynical touch…

I forgot to mention on Friday that I'm currently in Chicago attending the ASCO meeting. It's a lot of fun seeing the latest that science-based medicine has to offer, although ASCO isn't always my cup of tea. The reason is that it's very heavily based in medical oncology and chemotherapy, and there aren't a lot of surgical talks. Another reason is that it's a clinical meeting; so there isn't a lot of basic science. Still, there's plenty to keep my busy, and my blogging may be irregular over the next couple of days. Worse comes to worst, I'll post a "best of Orac" or two. Nothing short of death…

Feeling stressed? Run down? Is your face not as chipper and toned as it might be? Of course you are. We all are from time to time, particularly as we journey into middle age and beyond. So what better than a bit of pampering at the spa? There's nothing like a soothing facial to get the skin toned and the face all relaxed. But what kind of facial? What is best to get that blood flowing, those dead skin cells exfoliated, and that skin all toned and tight? Bird poop, of course. Just check out the Ten Thousand Waves spa in New Mexico and its Japanese Nightingale Facial: This is our signature…

Mike Adams is confused. I know, I know. Such a statement is akin to saying that water is wet (and that it doesn't have memory, at least not the mystical magical memories ascribed to it by homeopaths), that the sun rises in the East, or that writing an NIH R01 grant is hard, but there you go. Speaking of writing an NIH R01, that's exactly what I'm doing now, hence the decreased blogorrhea over the last few days, but sometimes trying to cram a five year project into the 13 pages (one page for specific aims and twelve to describe the project) makes my head hurt so much that reading and…

We all know that Mike Adams, a.k.a. the "Health Ranger," is anti-vaccine to the core. He's known for NaturalNews.com, a repository of quackery, anti-vaccine craziness, and conspiracy theories that rivals Whale.to but in a much slicker fashion. Now, unfortunately, I learn that he's going multimedia. Worse, Mike Rangers, who is about as white bread and un-hip-hop a guy as I can imagine, thinks he can rap: The song is called "Don't Inject Me (The Swine Flu Vaccine Song)." The common lies about the swine flu are all there: The claim that flu vaccines don't work; the paranoid delusion that the "…

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 have been more police present this year, more security, but everything's passed off very jovially and everyone's in a good mood. "And the police for the most part are wishing people a happy solstice and so are the security guards." Druid King? How cool is that? Think of it: Druid King Orac.…

Here's one of the stranger "alternative cancer cure" cases I've seen in a while. Basically, a man seems to think that a daily helping of his daughter's breast milk will cure his metastatic colon cancer: When Tim Browne sits down to a bowl of corn flakes in the morning, he slurps up one unusual, and controversial, extra ingredient: his own daughter's breast milk. He doesn't do it for the taste -- Browne initally said his daughter Georgia's breast millk tasted "not unpleasant, but slightly pungent" -- but for his health. Nearly two years ago, the retired teacher and musician from Wiltshire,…