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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

On the “individualization” of treatments in alternative medicine

One of the claims most frequently made by “alternative medicine” advocates regarding why alt-med is supposedly superior (or at least equal) to “conventional” medicine and should not be dismissed, regardless of how scientifically improbably any individual alt-med modality may be, is that the treatments are highly “individualized.” In other words, the “entire patient” is taken […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: You just might be an “altie” if… (2007 edition)

I didn’t get back home until late last night; unfortunately there was no time to do a segment of Your Friday Dose of Woo that was up to my standards. Fortunately, there’s something that I’ve been holding in reserve for just such an occasion that fits right in. Long-timers may remember that, near the very […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Gotta have more woo in my medical school!

Another one has fallen. Yes, another prestigious medical school has given in. First I lamented the decline in basic science education in medical schools. Then, I lamented even more the infiltration of woo into the curricula of far too many medical schools, spurred on by patient demand, a desire for a nice, high profit cash-on-the-barrelhead […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Ben Goldacre takes on Mark and David Geier

Somehow, in all the blogging about dichloroacetate earlier this week, I somehow missed a mention of a truly annoying thing that the editors of Lancet Neurology did. In essence, they allowed ethically challenged mercury warrior Mark Geier a forum to review Richard Lathe’s book Autism, Brain, and Environment. Egads! How desperate wer the editors of […]

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Bioethics Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

It’s nice to be noticed

Remember how I alluded to the fact that perhaps I’ve been doing a little too much blogging about dichloroacetate and the unscrupulous “entrepreneurs” who are taking advantage of desperate cancer patients to sell the stuff to them? Well, I can’t resist mentioning something truly amusing that I just noticed. The “health freedom” warriors and “entrepreneurs” […]