Category: Clinical trials

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

How is it that in 2018 cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski is still preying on desperate cancer patients?

Stanislaw Burzynski
Stanislaw Burzynski. Arrogant as ever.

In the 1970s, young polish expat and cancer researcher Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski thought he had found a cure for many incurable cancers. He dubbed it antineoplastons (ANPs_. Unfortunately, he left the path of science and started treating patients before he had evidence that ANPs work. Four decades later, without ever having published compelling evidence for anticancer efficacy of ANPs, he’s still luring desperate patients to his clinic. Now he’s set to branch out to quack clinics in Mexico. Why can’t the law stop him?

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Clinical trials Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy

Integrating homeopathy with medicine: Not the “best of both worlds”

Homeopathy
The editorial staff at The BMJ contemplate their next systematic review.

Advocates of “integrative medicine” argue that integrating alternative medicine with real medicine represents the “best of both worlds.” A recent study by Ben Goldacre suggests that, in reality, integrating quackery with medicine infects medicine with pseudoscience and poor practice.

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Bad science Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Politics Pseudoscience Quackery

Along with the NIH budget hike comes a less welcome large hike in the budget for quackery for the NCCIH

NCCIH
NCCIH: Integrating quackery with medicine.

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?

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

A bad week for homeopathy is a good week for science

Homeopathy: The Air Guitar of Medicine
Homeopathy: The Air Guitar of Medicine

It’s been a bad week for homeopathy. First, the NHS in the UK has stopped funding homeopathy in London. Then, news stories appeared about research fraud and a retracted clinical trial of homeopathy for cancer in which the investigators had already been arrested. So sad!

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Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture

The cruel sham that is “right-to-try” will be up for a vote in the House tomorrow

Right to Try
Right to Try

It’s finally happened. A “right-to-try” bill is coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives. It’s been slightly modified from the version that passed the Senate last year to make it less patient-hostile, but it’s still the same cruel sham that right-to-try has always been.