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Bad science Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The World Health Organization: Embracing traditional Chinese medicine pseudoscience in ICD-11

ICD-10 is a standardized system of alphanumeric codes for diagnoses maintained by the World Health Organization used throughout the world for billing, epidemiology, research, and cataloging causes of death. Its successor, ICD-11, is now complete and set to be formally adopted by WHO. Unfortunately, thanks to the influence of ideologues and the Chinese government, ICD-11 appears to be taking the “integration” of traditional medicine to a whole new level by integrating quack diagnoses with real diagnoses.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery

Michigan Vaccine Freedom Political Action Committee: Promoting antivaccine policies in my state

A childhood friend of mine, who is running for office, forwarded me a questionnaire from the Michigan Vaccine Freedom Political Action Committee. It consisted of questions about whether she would support vaccine “choice” and “freedom.” Unfortunately, antivaccine advocacy groups are becoming more influential. Now they’re trying to lobby like any other lobbying group.

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Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Burzynski’s old lawyer Richard Jaffe throws a quack stem cell clinic under the bus

Richard Jaffe was Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s lawyer. For nearly two decades, Jaffe defended this cancer quack from the FDA, Texas Medical Board, and the government in the name of “health freedom” and even invented Burzynski’s business model of having over 70 clinical trials open that allow him to treat any cancer patient he wants. More recently, he’s been a defender of for-profit quack stem cell clinics. Last week, he shocked me by finding one stem cell clinic so quacky that he thinks the government should shut it down, even going so far as to use criminal prosecution if necessary. Basically, he’s willing to throw one quack stem cell clinic under the bus, so that others can continue to profit.

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Bioethics Clinical trials Medicine Politics

As I predicted, the exploitation of desperate patients using right-to-try begins

I warned you. I’ve been warning you for four years. Now that a federal right-to-try law has passed, the profiteering has begun. Let patients beware!

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

In which my state senator Patrick Colbeck goes pretty much full antivaccine

In Michigan, we have succeeded in decreasing the rate of nonmedical exemptions by requiring parents requesting them to attend an educational session before they can claim such exemptions. Unfortunately, my state senator, Patrick Colbeck, thinks this is a bad idea and has revealed himself to be, if not antivaccine, antivaccine-sympathetic.