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Autism Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

dōTERRA Center for Integrative Oncology: St. Elizabeth Healthcare sells out to an MLM company hawking essential oils

dōTERRA essential oils

St. Elizabeth Healthcare in Cincinnati recently accepted $5 million from dōTERRA, an MLM company selling essential oils based on dubious claims. This is most definitely not a good look.

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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine

Harassment: The price of defending science-based medicine

harassment online

Harassment by cranks and antivaxxers is all too often the price of defending science-based medicine. Is it worth it? How can we stop it?

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Antivaccine nonsense Holocaust Medicine

The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 29: “Vacciphilia” and child grooming

Reacting to Rossi's comparison of vaccines to child grooming

Kim Rossi of the antivaccine blog Age of Autism compares vaccination to child grooming by pedophiles. But don’t call her “antivaccine.”

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Clinical trials Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture

Crowdfunding to pay to be a research subject in a clinical trial: The case of Lily Wythe [UPDATED 1/23/2020—see addendum]

Lily Wythe and pay-to-play clinical trials

Lily Wythe is a teenaged girl with a deadly brainstem cancer whose case has made international news because of her family’s crowdfunding to get her into a clinical trial. Should investigators be allowed to fund trials this way?

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Cancer Medicine

Mortality from cancer continues to decline, contrary to the claims of quacks

Mortality from these nasties continues to decline

Recently published 2020 American Cancer Society statistics show that overall cancer mortality continues to decline. In fact, it’s declining faster than ever, thanks to science-based medicine and public health.