Quackery
oracknows | August 6, 2011Here's blast from the past.
Interestingly, this doesn't exaggerate all that much...
oracknows | August 4, 2011Now this is some seriously funny stuff.
Anyone who's been reading this blog a while knows my opinion of Deepak Chopra. Basically, he's the quackiest of the quantum quacks, the godfather of quantum woo, the one woo-meister to rule them all. He did it first and did it "best" (if you can call it that), in the process garnering a devoted following of people with far more "spirituality" than understanding of science. All it took was a unrelenting abuse of quantum physics, a Lamarckian misunderstanding of evolution, combined with a bit of old-fashioned Cartesian mind-body dualism, all thrown into…
oracknows | August 2, 2011File this under "Well, duh!"
In thinking about "alternative" medicine, occasionally I contemplate the deepest, most profound questions having to do with health and healing, the difference between science-based medicine and evidence-based medicine, and how to maximize the therapeutic effect of scientifically validated treatments. Other times, I contemplate the question of just what is, based on logic and basic science alone, the most ridiculous "alternative medicine" therapy of all time.
Certainly, there are many contenders. For example, there is homeopathy, which is basically nothing more…
oracknows | August 2, 2011One of the very first themes I started hammering on in this blog, dating back to its very inception, is the analysis of alternative medicine cancer testimonials. One reason was (and is) that I take care of cancer patients and do research into developing new treatments for a living. Another reason is that, to the average lay person, most of whom don't have much of an understanding of cancer, alternative medicine cancer testimonials can sound extremely convincing.
For example, if you didn't know that breast cancer can have a highly variable course spreading out over years, Kim Tinkham's claim…
oracknows | July 31, 2011As hard as it is to believe, I've been blogging about anti-vaccine nonsense and autism quackery since early 2005. Before that, I had been a regular on the misc.health.alternative newsgroup, where I had also encountered anti-vaccine pseudoscience, but the topic had not been a top priority for me. In fact, when I started this blog back in late 2004, I did not imagine at that time that I would somehow end up becoming one of the "go-to" bloggers for taking on anti-vaccine nonsense. Yet somehow I did, and dealing with the misinformation, lies, and pseudoscience of the anti-vaccine movement has…
oracknows | July 29, 2011It's been around four years now since I first wrote a post about what I now like to call the "toxins gambit" favored by anti-vaccine loons. This particular gambit consists of finding scary-sounding chemicals in vaccines, such as formaldehyde, and then trying to stoke fear of vaccines based on their presence. This gambit, whether invoked through ignorance (which is common) or disingenuousness (which, I suspect, is even more common) is a blatant appeal to fear of chemicals that depends upon the average person's ignorance that, for example, formaldehyde is a normal byproduct of metabolism and 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 27, 2011The infiltration of quackademic medicine continues apace.
I know, I know. I say that a lot, but it's only because it is, alas, so very, very true and so very, very distressing to supporters of science-based medicine. It's not as though I haven't written about it many, many times over the last six and a half years; indeed, it's become a major theme of this blog and at least one other blog that regular readers here might be familiar with. Whether it be the American Medical Students Association (AMSA) pitching woo, Georgetown going beyond electives in "complementary and alternative medicine" (…
oracknows | July 25, 2011Sadly, this isn't too far from the truth when it comes to some of these anti-vaccine doctors:
Actually, it's too generous. My only criticism of this video is that the mother with the child with suspected pertussis wasted more time with this idiot than was wise.
oracknows | July 24, 2011I must admit, I'm surprised that it took so long for this to happen.
Remember back in April? Three months ago, uber-quack (in my opinion) Joe Mercola teamed up with the grand dame of the anti-vaccine movement Barbara Loe Fisher of the misnamed National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) to run a "public service announcement" on the CBS JumboTron in Times Square. Here is the ad:
To recap, yes, I know that the ad itself appears relatively innocuous. Certainly that's what Joe Mercola and Barbara Loe Fisher argue, because all it says is "Vaccines: Know the Risks" followed by "Vaccination: Your…
oracknows | July 22, 2011Et tu, Consumer Reports?
Since I was a teenager, I've intermittently read Consumer Reports, relying on it for guidance in all manner of purchase decisions. CR has been known for rigorous testing of all manner of consumer products and the rating of various services, arriving at its rankings through a systematic testing method that, while not necessarily bulletproof, has been far more organized and consistent than most other ranking systems. True, I haven't always agreed with CR's rankings of products and services about which I know a lot, but at the very least CR has often made me think about…
oracknows | July 11, 2011There's a website out there that calls itself Opposing Views. I haven't visited it in a while, but its very reason for existence and philosophy seems to be built on the "tell both sides" fallacy that so irritates me. In other words, Opposing Views appears to be built from the ground up to provide "balance" in all things. Sometimes, as in areas of politics, balance is not a bad thing. When it comes to science, not so much. The reason is that the "balance" in science shown by Opposing views is the sort that thinks there are two equally valid views in manufactroversies like the "debate" over…
oracknows | July 10, 2011Remember Helen Ratajczak?
A few months ago, CBS News' resident anti-vaccine reporter Sharyl Attkisson was promoting Ratajczak's incompetent "analysis" of evidence that she views as implicating vaccines in the pathogenesis of autism entitled Theoretical aspects of autism: causes--A Review (which is available in all its misinforming glory here). I applied some not-so-Respectful Insolence to the idiocy contained within Ratajczak's article. One aspect of the article that I mentioned was how Ratajczak claimed that DNA from "aborted fetal tissue" in vaccines correlated with the rise of autism. The…
oracknows | July 8, 2011One of the recurrent themes of this blog is to point out, analyze, and discuss the creeping infiltration of pseudoscience into medicine. In particular, it irks me that so many physicians, who really should know better, so easily fall for the siren song of quackery for whatever reason, be it a misguided desire to be nonjudgmental, to give the patients what they want, or through an inadequate understanding and appreciation of the scientific method. Indeed, there are whole specialties dedicated to "integrating" woo with science-based medicine to the detriment of science-based medicine.
Still,…
oracknows | July 7, 2011I just saw something I don't see every day. Or every week. Or every month. Or even every year.
I frequently complain about supplements on this blog. Well, not supplements per se but rather the double standard we have in this country when it comes to supplements. Basically, supplements are about as close to unregulated as you can imagine, thanks to a law known as the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or the DSHEA. Indeed, just last week, I wrote a post about a legislator whom I like to refer to as the lapdog of the supplement industry, namely Republican Senator Orrin Hatch…
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 4, 2011I saw this story on Friday and almost couldn't wait the weekend to blog about it. However, since the conference that was brought to my attention isn't until November, I ultimately decided that it would keep. At least until now.
This story is about Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health. Unlike some bloggers, personally, as a physician and scientist I don't much care about what religion Dr. Collins ascribes to. Unlike some writers such as Sam Harris, most definitely do not consider his strong Christian faith a disqualification for holding the position that he now…
oracknows | July 4, 2011Happy Independence Day, everyone!
Believe it or not, your normally blogorrheic host is taking this holiday off. For one thing, I have to work on my talk for the Science-Based Medicine workshop at The Amaz!ng Meeting 9 next week. For another thing, I have a fair amount of work for my actual job to do before tomorrow morning. So in the meantime I'll do what I like to call a "lazy blogger trick," namely to post an open thread. I'll also refer you to an excellent post by Mark Crislip about the difference between clinical thinking and critical thinking. It's such a good point that I might have to…
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 29, 2011Well, I'm back.
Grant frenzy is over (for now), and I have a couple of weeks before the next cycle begins again. Well, actually, it's more than that. The next big NIH grant deadlines are in October and November, but the Susan G. Komen Foundation grant notices just showed up in my e-mail the other day, and the deadlines for its preapplications are in early to mid-August. The fun never ends, and if the Army approves my preapplication for its Idea Award grant application I'll have a full application to write in August too. It's times like these when I ask myself why it is exactly that I do this…