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Medicine Quackery

Battling quackery in “conventional” medicine

Grant crunch time again yesterday. That means it’s the perfect time once again to dig up something from the archives of old blog and repost it here. This particular piece originally appeared on January 12, 2005, just shy of one month after I started blogging. I’m guessing once again that, because not many people were […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Magical thinking versus lymphoma

I’ve written several times about two young victims of what is normally a highly treatable cancer (Hodgkin’s lymphoma) and how, with their parents’ support, they have jeopardized their lives by choosing alternative therapies. The first, Katie Wernecke, was initially taken from her family by the State of Texas, but her parents ultimately won a court […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The Cancer Blog goes woo

I used to like The Cancer Blog. I really did. It was one of the first medical blogs I discovered many months ago when I first dipped my toe into the blogosphere. Indeed, less than two months after I started blogging, one of The Cancer Blog’s bloggers then, Dr. Leonardo Faoro, even invited me to […]

Categories
Cancer Medicine Politics

Overdiagnosis of breast cancer due to mammography

Screening for disease, especially cancer, is a real bitch. I was reminded of this by the publication of a study in BMJ the very day of the Science-Based Medicine Conference a week and a half ago. Unfortunately, between The Amaz!ng Meeting and other activities, I was too busy to give this study the attention it […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Reader e-mail: Why are you picking on Jenny McCarthy over vaccines and autism?

Last night, I received an e-mail from a fairly well-known atheist (no, it wasn’t Richard Dawkins, although that would have been totally cool) criticizing me for my post about Bill Maher’s complete unsuitability for the Richard Dawkins Award. I’m not going to reprint my response to that part, because, well, his criticisms were pretty much […]