Quackery
oracknows | August 31, 2010I love it when my fans notice me.
After all, of what use is my having taken so many hours over so many years laying down on a nearly daily basis if my words don't have an impact? Surely I couldn't be so egotistical that I'd do it anyway even if my readership was what it was when I first started out and had not increased to the point where I'm the (alleged) force that I've become in the medical and skeptical blogosphere, would I?
Wait, on second thought, don't answer that.
In any case, back in the day I'd write my best snarky skeptical deconstruction of some bit of pseudoscience or another and…
oracknows | August 30, 2010A frequent lament of members of the anti-vaccine movement is that they are not "anti-vaccine" but rather "pro-safe vaccine." they like to claim that they are not opposed to vaccines in general. Of course, in many, if not most or even all cases, that denial is either a lie or self-delusion. After all, even the most die-hard anti-vaccine zealot realizes that being anti-vaccine is quite correctly viewed by the vast majority of people as not rational.
That's why, in a perverse way, I'm thankful for loons like Mike Adams. Yes, Mike Adams. He lays the crazy out in a way that no one else does. But…
oracknows | August 23, 2010
One of the main topics that I've covered over the last four or five of laying down a swath of not-so-Respectful Insolence directed at pseudoscience is the relatively rapid, seemingly relentless infiltration of pseudoscience into what should be bastions of science-based medicine (SBM), namely medical schools and academic medical centers promoted by academics who should, but apparently don't, know better. This infiltration has been facilitated by a variety of factors, including changes in the culture of medical academia and our own culture in general, not to mention a dedicated cadre of…
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oracknows | August 20, 2010Here we go again.
Apparently, trying to bounce back from the humiliation of having had its plan to do a music and comedy fundraiser with Jill Sobule as one of the headliners shot down when Sobule found out that Generation Rescue is an "autism organization" that supports anti-vaccine pseudoscience like that of Andrew Wakefield and Mark and David Geier and quite correctly decided to withdraw, Generation Rescue is at it again with an event it's calling Comedy for Kids with Autism.
According to the mass e-mail I received:
Join us Saturday, September 11th at the Third Annual "Comedy for Kids with…
oracknows | August 19, 2010At the risk of once again irritating long time readers who've hear me say this before, I can't resist pointing out that, of all the various forms of "alternative medicine" other than herbal medicines (many of which are drugs, just adulterated, impure drugs), acupuncture was the one treatment that, or so I thought, might actually have a real therapeutic effect. Don't get me wrong; I never bought magical mystical mumbo-jumbo about "meridians" and "unblocking the flow of qi" (that magical mystical life energy that can't be detected by scientists but that practitioners of woo claim to be able to…
oracknows | August 18, 2010There's so much horrible reporting on vaccines and the whole manufactroversy that promulgates the myth that vaccines somehow cause autism through a combination of confusing correlation with causation, bad science, quackery, and misrepresenting autism that it's gotten harder for me to be sufficiently irritated to write about it. When I see yet another another example of credulous reporting, it has to be either truly egregious to the point of catching my attention above the baseline noise of stories presenting anti-vaccine pseudoscience as though there were any truth to it or somehow illustrate…
oracknows | August 17, 2010...you might want to check out this talk by a certain "friend" of this blog, as well as the reception to follow (although why anyone would want to pay any money to hang out with him, I have no idea). A little birdie tells me it'll be pretty good.
oracknows | August 15, 2010Thanks to Autism News Beat, I've found the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! episode Vaccination in a streaming form. I have two warnings. First, if you're not familiar with Penn & Teller, you should be prepared for lots of profanity, including liberal use of the F-word. There is also one scene with a topless woman near the end. If you're easily offended, then you probably shouldn't watch. You have been warned. Second, you have to hit the arrow directly in order not to go to the website hosting the streaming video:
I have to say, I've rarely seen a more visually effective way of portraying…
oracknows | August 14, 2010Here's a rather interesting (and telling) comment that, because it showed up on an old post, many readers might have missed:
As a practicing acupuncturist I can only say that my sham techniques have frequently and often created such a powerful placebo effect that many patients coming to my office having exhausted "allopathic" cures find quick and lasting relief.
Some doctors, having been impressed by my results have actually started referring patients to me.
The real sham is the belief that Western Medicine has pure scientific roots that back up every treatment. If only it were the case (for…
oracknows | August 13, 2010After nearly six years subjecting the world to my meandering and often incredibly verbose stylings, I'm now what you would call an established blogger. Even more than that, I'm a reasonably high traffic blogger, at least in the medical blogosphere. What that means is that I get a lot of e-mail. A lot. While I do look at each and every e-mail that finds its way into the in box of one of my accounts, there's no way I can respond to them all. In order to save time, I look for shortcuts, and one of those shortcuts is not to devote more than a second or two to e-mails that are obvious sales…
oracknows | August 12, 2010It was nearly a month ago when I first marveled at how nonsense could be so well-organized. My marvel was expressed at the awesomeness that was the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense (which, by the way, is now available in "sanitized" versions, as well as versions in other languages). It turns out that Crispan's effort has inspired one of my readers to try his hand at this whole organizating nonsense thing. This blog being what it is and all and his proclivities being what they are, he decided to create...drumroll, please...The Periodic Table of Vaccine Rejectionism, which he's given me…
oracknows | August 12, 2010It's finally here! The long expected episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, in which the boys take on the anti-vaccine movement in their usual inimitable fashion, will premiere tonight on Showtime at 10 PM. It's even the eighth season finale, which is appropriate. If there's a form of "bullshit" other than the irrationality that is the anti-vaccine movment that represents a threat to public health more profound, I have a hard time thinking of it, and it's hard to believe that Penn and Teller did nearly eight seasons of their show without taking it on.
Here's a preview:
Unfortunately,…
oracknows | August 10, 2010Yesterday, I wrote a rather lengthy post about germ theory denialism. As I put it, yes, there really are people who don't accept the germ theory of disease. As part of my Orac-ian length discussion (well over 4,000 words), I had a bit of fun with a video done by a hapless (is there any other kind?) naturopath named "Dr. Shawn." Our new buddy Dr. Shawn laid down a heapin' helpin' of napalm-grade burning stupid in the form of only the finest germ theory denialism coupled with some truly brain dead analogies, not to mention a whole lot of hating on swamps. Last night, exhausted by an even longer…
oracknows | August 7, 2010Here's some sheer awesomeness in the form of an explanation of germ theory denialism:
The only thing I would disagree with is the conclusion at the end that germ theory denialists are not much of a threat. In fact, germ theory denialism, usually softer germ theory denialism, such as the kind that says a healthy body can can fight off any bacteria or virus (the implication being that germs can cause disease only if there is some problem in the body) is a major strain of "thought" (if you can call it that) in anti-vaccine circles. In fact, it's a major strain of "thought" driving many forms…
oracknows | August 6, 2010If there's one aspect of medical education that I consider to be paramount, at least when it comes to understanding how to analyze and apply all the evidence, both basic science and clinical, it's a firm grounding in the scientific method. I advocate science-based medicine (SBM), which is what evidence-based medicine (EBM) should be. SBM tries to overcome the shortcomings of EBM by taking into account all the evidence, both scientific and clinical, in deciding what therapies work, what therapies don't work, and why. To recap, a major part of our thesis is that EBM, although a step forward…
oracknows | August 4, 2010Of all the bizarre forms of antivaccine autism quackery, one of the strangest has to be Mark and David Geier's "Lupron protocol." I've written about it many times, dating back to 2006 and, more recently, when the Chicago Tribune provided the first coverage I'm aware of of the Geiers' quackery in a major newspaper, thanks to Trine Tsouderos. If you want the details, feel free to click on the links, but I'll boil it down for purposes of this post.
Basically, the father-and-son team of autism woo-meisters who operate out of the basement of the father's Silver Spring, MD house, Mark and David…
oracknows | August 3, 2010Continuing on the theme for today, I can't resist posting this little news report from Seattle that came up in my newsfeed:
It kind of ruins the placebo effect to be left lying around after hours with a bunch of needles sticking in your back, doesn't it?
oracknows | August 3, 2010One of the things that disturbs me the most about where medicine is going is the infiltration of quackery into academic medicine. So prevalent is this unfortunate phenomenon that Doctor RW even coined a truly apt term for it: Quackademic medicine. In essence, pseudoscientific and even prescientific ideas are rapidly being "integrated" with science-based medicine, or, as I tend to view it, quackery is being "integrated" with scientific medicine, to the gradual erosion of scientific standards in medicine. No quackery is too quacky, it seems. Even homeopathy and naturopathy can seemingly find…
oracknows | July 30, 2010A couple of days ago, I expressed my amusement at an e-mail sent to me by someone named "Carol." The amusement came primarily from the subject matter in the e-mail, which described something called a "biophoton ionizer," whatever that is. Knowing, as I do, how prevalent water woo is (after all, what is homeopathy but the grand daddy of all water woo?), I was naturally curious about what the heck a "biophoton ionizer" is. After all, what's the difference between a regular photon and a "biophoton"? What is the characteristic of the photon that makes it "bio," if you know what I mean. I was sure…