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Cancer Clinical trials

In clinical research, the road to hell is paved with good intentions

I’ve written a lot about Stanislaw Burzynski and what I consider to be his unethical use and abuse of institutional review boards and clinical trials. Before that, I used to regularly write about Mark and David Geier and their unethical use and abuse of IRBs and clinical trials. In both cases, I lamented how they […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Quackery

Quackery of a different kind than I usually write about, part 2

About a week and a half ago, I wrote about a local oncologist who was arrested by the FBI for massive Medicare fraud in which physician involved diagnosed cancers that weren’t there, gave chemotherapy to patients who either didn’t have cancer or were in remission and thus didn’t need it, and had developed a self-referral […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

The key difference between alternative medicine and evidence-based medicine

Recently, I got an e-mail from someone who had just discovered my blog that made me think a bit, which is usually a good thing. At least, in this case it was. Basically, this reader asked me a question I hadn’t been asked in a very long time and hadn’t thought about in a very […]

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Autism Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials EneMan

Yes, Virginia, unlike CAM, science-based medicine does change based on science

“Alternative medicine,” so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), or, as it’s become fashionable to call it, “integrative medicine” is a set of medical practices that are far more based on belief than science. As my good bud and collaborator Mark Crislip so pointedly reminded us last week, CAM is far more akin to religion than […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine History Medicine Movies Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

How Stanislaw Burzynski became Burzynski the Brave Maverick Doctor, part 1

Time really does fly. It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a week since I gave my big (to me, at least) talk at TAM. It’s equally hard to believe that it’s been more than a week since I had the honor of being kicked out of Penn Jillette’s Private Rock & Roll Bacon […]