Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery

So chemotherapy does work, after all (revisited)

If there’s one medical treatment that proponents of “alternative medicine” love to hate, it’s chemotherapy. Rants against “poisoning” are a regular staple on “alternative health” websites, usually coupled with insinuations or outright accusations that the only reason oncologists administer chemotherapy is because of the “cancer industrial complex” in which big pharma profits massively from selling […]

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

On refusing adjuvant therapy for cancer…this time without alternative medicine

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the things I do on this blog that I consider to be a public service is to analyze cancer cure testimonials that are used to sell alternative medicine. Indeed, I did just that yesterday for a testimonial by someone Chris Wark, who will probably feature again one more time […]

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

The Cancer Treatment Centers of America revisited: From "naturopathic oncology" to Burzynski-like genomic testing

Here we go with another one. Three weeks ago, I mentioned in a post that the week of October 7 to 14 was declared by our very own United States Senate to be Naturopathic Medicine Week, which I declared unilaterally through my power as managing editor of Science-Based Medicine (for what that’s worth) to be […]

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

Cancer chemotherapy and obesity

In medicine, particularly oncology, it’s often the little things that matter. Sometimes, however, the “little things” aren’t actually little; they just seem that way. I was reminded of this by a story that was circulating a couple of weeks ago in the national media, often under titles like “Obese cancer patients often shorted on chemo […]

Categories
Clinical trials Medicine Politics

The fallacious attacks on Obamacare and Medicaid continue apace…

Tomorrow, as mandated by the Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act (PPACA, often called just the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, or “Obamacare”), the government-maintained health insurance exchanges will open for business (that is, assuming the likely government shutdown doesn’t stop them temporarily). This post will be basically a followup to a post I […]