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Clinical trials Medicine

Neonatal death rates after home births and a strange skeptic kerfuffle

If there’s a topic that I don’t write about much, it’s obstetrics. The reason is that it’s not a major area of my interest, and it’s not an area where I have as much expertise as I do in, say, cancer or even vaccines. My expertise in cancer comes from my career, of course, and […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Attacks on the FDA on Mercola.com

I forgot if I ever mentioned that I have an article out in the current episode of Skeptical Inquirer about Stanislaw Burzynski. I call it a “primer for skeptics,” because that’s what it is. So, if you subscribe to SI (Skeptical Inquirer, not Sports Illustrated), read. If not, get thee to a newsstand before it’s […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Politics

Dallas Buyers Club-inspired “right to try” laws: Good movies don’t make good policy

One of my favorite shows right now is True Detective, an HBO show in which two cops pursue a serial killer over the course of over 16 years. Starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, it’s an amazingly creepy show, and McConaughey is amazing at playing his character, Rustin Cohle. I’m sad that the show will […]

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Clinical trials Medicine Science

Data sharing is always good, right? Well, not quite…

Rare is the occasion when I disagree significantly with my collaborator Steve Novella, but this is one of those times. It’s a measure of how much we agree on most things that, even in this case, I don’t completely disagree with him. But, hey, it happens. I’m referring to Steve’s post yesterday in which he […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

The Canadian Breast Screening Study attacked: Why do doctors have such a hard time with the concept of overdiagnosis?

The last couple of weeks, I’ve made allusions to the “Bat Signal” (or, as I called it, the “Cancer Signal,” although that’s a horrible name and I need to think of a better one). Basically, when Bat Cancer Signal goes up (hey, I like that one better, but do bats get cancer?), it means that […]