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Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

They don’t call it “cheat-lation” for nothing

Regular readers here are probably most familiar with the so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” therapy known as chelation therapy in the context of its use, or, more specifically, its misuse in “treating” autistic children, a misuse that has resulted in at least one death, a five-year-old autistic boy named Abubakar Tariq Nadama. However, before the […]

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Bioethics Cancer Medicine

Blogging on vacation?

OK, I know it’s like the post calling the kettle black, but what the heck is PalMD doing blogging on vacation? And are his two most recent posts so good? This is what I mean: Why hospice matters Never say “hopeless” I recently had the unfortunate opportunity to visit a relative in hospice. I was […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Stuff I didn’t have time to blog about…

I’m not normally one to do link roundups or Instapundit-style one sentence “link and comment” posts. Sure, I do them occasionally, but I think the reason that I don’t is that to me blogging is a way to express my views, not just to point to the views at others (in other words, because I’m […]

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Anti-Semitism Bioethics Biology Entertainment/culture Evolution History Holocaust Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Movies Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking World War II

A question for Ben Stein: Why are you singling out Darwin and ignoring the true inspirations for the Holocaust, Pasteur and Koch?

Nasal drone Ben Stein, as you would be hard-pressed not to know if you are a regular reader of ScienceBlogs, is hosting what looks to be a truly execrable crap-fest called Expelled!: No Intelligence Allowed. The movie basically consists of two themes: (1) Whining about “intellectual oppression” by those evil “Darwinists” directed against any valiant […]

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Bioethics Clinical trials Medicine Quackery

Stem cell tourism: Stem cells as the new snake oil

There’s no doubt about it: Stem cells are hot. Yes indeed, they’re not only hot, but they’re hip, they’re happenin‘, they’re right now, baby. Scientists are falling all over themselves with excitement at the potential applications that could potentially come from stem cell technology. True, no validated therapies for embryonic stem cells have yet made […]