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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Politics Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The RAND Corporation: Supporting the “integration” of quackery with real medicine since 2008

As regular readers of this blog and related blogs know, over the last two or three decades there has been a successful effort to legitimize quackery in the form of what is now called “integrative medicine.” Three decades ago, modalities like homeopathy, acupuncture, much of traditional Chinese medicine, reflexology, chiropractic, and many other modalities based […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Cassandra Callender, the teen who refused chemotherapy, has relapsed

I hate these stories, because they so seldom end well. Unfortunately, this one is more messy than even the usual messiness of the typical story of this type. The type of story I’m referring to, of course, is one that I’ve told from time to time ever since near the first year of this blog’s […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

Cancer patients do not need or want suggestions for alternative cancer cures

Over the last week or so, I’ve noticed (or had brought to my attention) a series of articles discussing a phenomenon related to alternative medicine that I don’t believe that I’ve addressed before, at least not directly anyway. I had filed some of these in my folder of topics for blogging, but somehow never got […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

Why some physicians embrace quackery

And now for something completely different. Yes, it’s about time for that, isn’t it? I’ve probably beat the Tribeca Film Festival story into the ground, even for me, having spent the last week blogging about it. Scratch that. There’s no “probably” about it. I frequently write at length about the quackery that is homeopathy. One […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy

Another child dead from quackery

Naturopathy is quackery, and, like many forms of quackery, it kills. People who trust naturopaths to treat actual serious diseases instead of using real doctors and real medicine dramatically decrease their odds of surviving a serious illness. While competent adults have every right to make that choice, to use fake medicine instead of real medicine, […]