Categories
Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine

More credulous reporting on placebo effects

Now that Trine Tsouderos no longer works for the Chicago Tribune, there aren’t that many reliable generalist medical/science reporters around any more. For example, here in the U.S. there’s Marilyn Marchionne at the AP, Gina Kolata of the New York Times, and then there’s Sharon Begley, who used to be at Newsweek but is now […]

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Popular culture

In which Joe Jackson’s wisdom about cancer is apparently not validated

Everything Everything gives you cancer Everything Everything gives you cancer There’s no cure, there’s no answer Everything gives you cancer – Joe Jackson I don’t write about nutrition as much as other topics because I’m not as knowledgeable about it as I am about, say, cancer, vaccines, and what constitutes good medical evidence. (I am, […]

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

In which David Freedman criticizes health journalism and simultaneously destroys my irony meter

About a year and a half ago, I applied a heapin’ helpin’ of not-so-Respectful Insolence to a a clueless article about the the “triumph” of New Age medicine. The article channeled the worst fallacies of apologists for alternative medicine. Basically, its whole idea appeared to be that, even if most of “complementary and alternative medicine” […]

Categories
Biology Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

NIH funding: The dreaded issue of conformity rears its ugly head again

For all the worship of “translational” research that is currently in vogue, it needs to be remembered that a robust pipeline of basic science progress upon which to base translational research and clinical trials is absolutely essential if progress in medicine is to continue. Without it, progress in SBM will slow and even grind to […]

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Crank spin versus science on mammography

Sometimes when a study comes out that I’m very interested in blogging about, I don’t get around to it right away. In the blogging biz, this sort of delay is often considered a bad thing, because blogging tends to be very immediate, about being the firstest with the mostest, and the moment to strike and […]