Earlier this month, Congress passed an omnibus budget bill that provided a large hike in the budget the National Institutes of Health. Unfortunately, along with that budget hike was an even bigger percent hike for the NIH’s bastion of quackery, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. How did this happen?
The HeartMath Institute runs a project that it calls the Global Coherence Initiative. It’s main idea is that we are all interconnected, including through the earth’s electromagnetic field. Unfortunately, Scientific Reports published some bad science whose purpose is to support Deepak Chopra-level woo.
A year ago, I wrote about some bad science from Italy from Stefano Montanari and Antonietta Gatti, in which an electron microscope was used and abused to claim that vaccines are contaminated with horrific “nanoparticles.” A year later, Gatti and Montanari’s homes, labs, and offices were raided and their computers seized in an investigation. Not surprisingly, the antivaccine movement has spun a conspiracy theory out of the raid. The real explanation is likely to be much less sinister.
For credibility, the antivaccine movement needs antivaccine pediatricians, such as Dr. Jay Gordon and Dr. Bob Sears. Meet the pediatrician who is the latest rising star in the antivaccine movement, Dr. Paul Thomas. He even claims to have his very own “vaxed vs. unvaxed” study.
A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by the a reporter from the Georgetown student newsletter about its integrative medicine program. It got me to thinking how delusion that one’s work is science-based can lead to collaborations with New Age “quantum” mystics like Deepak Chopra. “Integrative medicine” doctors engaging in what I like to refer to as quackademic medicine all claim to be “evidence-based” or “science-based.” The words apparently do not mean what integrative medicine academics think they mean.
