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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Is this “turbo cancer” claim the single dumbest misuse of VAERS that I’ve ever seen?

A Substack writer who goes by the ‘nym “2nd Smartest Guy in the World” misuses VAERS to demonstrate a “143,233 surge in fatal cancers” due to COVID-19 vaccines, thus proving Betteridge’s law of headlines wrong in this case.

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Cancer Medicine Quackery

ASCO’s new guidelines promote quackery for cancer pain

Recently, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Society for Integrative Oncology published guidelines for treating cancer pain. These guidelines endorsed quackery like reflexology and acupuncture. The infiltration of quackademic medicine continues apace in oncology.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Cancer Medicine

There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer”

Over the last several months, antivaxxers have been claiming that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer”, cancers (or cancer recurrences) of a particularly aggressive and fast-growing variety diagnosed in younger and younger patients. “Turbo cancer” is not a thing, and the evidence cited is as weak as any antivax “evidence”, including anecdotes and misinterpretation of epidemiology.

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Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Aromatase inhibitors and acupuncture in breast cancer

Four years ago, I wrote about an essentially negative study looking at whether acupuncture could alleviate joint pain caused by aromatase inhibitors, a common treatment for estrogen-sensitive breast cancer. The study’s back, and it doesn’t look any more positive.

Categories
Cancer Medicine Quackery

Fenbendazole: I’m having flashbacks to laetrile and Stanislaw Burzynski

Antivaxxers who “repurposed” deworming drugs like ivermectin and fenbendazole are peddling cancer “miracle cure” testimonials that remind me of laetrile and Stanislaw Burzynski. Truly, everything old is new again.