Categories
Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Essential reading: Why prior probability is important in considering the results of clinical trials of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine”

I’ve become known as an advocate for evidence-based medicine (EBM) in the three years since I started this little bit of ego gratification known as Respectful Insolence™. One thing this exercise has taught me that I might never have learned before (and that I’ve only reluctantly begun to accept as true) is one huge problem […]

Categories
Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Yawn, still one more overhyped acupuncture study: Does acupuncture help infertile women conceive?

Oops, they did it again. You think the media would learn after the last time, but no…. There it was on Friday greeting me on the ABC News website: “Study: Acupuncture May Boost Pregnancy” in bold blue letters, with the title of the webpage being “Needles Help You Become Pregnant.” Wow, what a claim! Naturally, […]

Categories
Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Word of the day

Word of the day: “Quackademic medicine.” I love it. Dr. R.W. explains. I very well may have to steal that term. As they say about artists, good ones borrow but great ones steal. (Just living up to the arrogance of my namesake…)

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Quackery Surgery

Dr. Judah Folkman: A true scientific giant has died

Today is a very sad day around my lab. I’ve just been informed that one of my scientific heroes, the man whose work inspired me to enter the research area that I entered, namely tumor angiogenesis, died last night. Yes, sadly, Dr. Judah Folkman reportedly died of a heart attack last night. I had the […]

Categories
Bioethics Clinical trials Medicine

When human subjects protection stifles innovation

The other day, I happened across an Op-Ed article in the New York Times that left me scratching my head at the seeming insanity of the incident it described. The article, written by Dr. Atul Gawande, author of Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science and Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, described what […]