Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Homeopathy and side effects due to cancer therapy: When bad journalism attacks

I’ve complained about it time and time again because it’s annoyed me time and time again. Specifically, I’m talking about how various news outlets report scientific studies involving so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), sometimes called “integrative medicine” (IM), the latter of which I like to refer to adding a bit of woo to make […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Quackery Television

Even Tarial cell-powered computers sometimes screw up

I really need to rein myself in sometimes. Yesterday, all pleased as punch with myself for my mad Google skillz and for thinking I figured out just what “alternative” therapy it was that Farrah Fawcett had undergone that had resulted in what sounded for all the world like a rectus sheath hematoma, I wrote about […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Quackery Television

Farrah Fawcett, anal cancer, and “alternative medicine cancer cures”

Note the followup post to this one, in which Orac admits error. You just have to read it, given how rarely Orac messes up when speculating… Our cancer center has a large, open area interspersed with patient waiting areas, one of which is the clinic where I see patients, that I frequently must traverse to […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

A horrifying breast cancer “testimonial” for “holistic” treatment, part 2

(NOTE ADDED 12/7/2010: Kim Tinkham has died of what was almost certainly metastatic breast cancer.) Three days ago, I decided to take a look at the scientific literature regarding whether any “alternative” therapies do any good for breast cancer. Not surprisingly, I found no evidence that any such therapy did, with the possible exception of […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

Does alternative medicine use result in worse outcomes in breast cancer?

Has it really been that long? More than two years ago, I wrote a post entitled Death by Alternative Medicine: Who’s to Blame? The topic of the post was a case report that I had heard while visiting the tumor board of an affiliate of my former cancer center describing a young woman who had […]