Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

Dr. Joseph Mercola: A quack tycoon funding antivaccine causes

Dr. Joseph Mercola has built a massive alternative health empire. Unfortunately, he’s now using his wealth to fund antivaccine propaganda.

Categories
Evolution Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Dichotomous thinking, uncertainty, and science denial

There is a defect in thinking that is arguably at the heart of much of science denial, dichotomous thinking. We all do it to some extent, but science deniers do it in spades.

Categories
Cancer Medicine Quackery Surgery

Ranjana Srivastava: When cancer patients want quackery

Regular readers will have noticed that I haven’t been blogging nearly as much as usual. All I can say is that a combination of personal and professional issues and obligations have gotten in the way. Also, I have been a bit under the weather, as hard as it is to believe that a Tarial cell-driven […]

Categories
Cancer Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Cancer quack Robert O. Young loses a lawsuit to the tune of $105 million. We need more of this.

Robert O. Young is a cancer quack who claims to be a naturopath who promotes what he calls “pH Miracle Living.” He claims that cancer is caused by excess acid and that the way to prevent and cure cancer is to “alkalinize the blood.” Two and a half years ago, he was convicted of practicing medicine without a license. A week and a half ago, a woman whose breast cancer progressed to incurable while being treated by Young won a $105 million settlement in a lawsuit against him. Maybe civil suits can succeed where state medical boards have failed.

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Integrative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Orac basks in the adoration of Gary Null

Orac loves to bask in the adulation of his “fans.” This time around, one of the old men of quackery, Gary Null, has decided that he really, really doesn’t like science-based medicine. That includes Steve Novella, Susan Gerbic, and…Orac.