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Biology Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture

Supplements: Flushing your money down the toilet in expensive urine

I remember during medical school that more than one of my faculty used to have a regularly repeated crack that the only thing that taking vitamin supplements could do for you was to produce expensive pee. My first year in medical school was nearly thirty years ago now; so it’s been a long time. During […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Quackery

Katie Couric on the HPV vaccine: Antivaccine or irresponsible journalist? You be the judge!

I’m not really happy to have to write this post, but a blogger’s got to do what a blogger’s got to do. The reason is that Katie Couric has done something requires—nay, demands—a heapin’ helpin’ of Orac’s characteristic Respectful Insolence. Why should I give the proverbial rodent’s posterior about who gets the Insolence today? The […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

CAM practitioners versus preventive medicine

If there’s one claim that practitioners of “holistic” medicine frequently make, it’s that “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine” or whatever the term du jour for the combining of quackery with science-based medicine is these days is allegedly so much better than “conventional” or “allopathic” medicine (or whatever disparaging term “holistic practitioners” prefer) […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Movies Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The quack view of preventing breast cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie, part 2

After yesterday, I really hadn’t planned on writing about Angelina Jolie and her decision to undergo bilateral mastectomies again, except perhaps as a more serious piece next week on my not-so-super-secret other blog where The Name of the Doctor is revealed on a weekly basis. As I mentioned yesterday, there are a number of issues […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Autism prevalence is reported to be 1 in 50, and the antivaccine movement goes wild…again

I don’t always blog about stories or studies that interest me right away. Part of the reason is something I’ve learned over the last eight years of blogging, namely that, while it’s great to be the firstest with the mostest, I’d rather be the blogger with the mostest than the firstest. I’ve learned this from […]