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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine News of the Weird Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Antivaccine pseudoscience at The Cleveland Clinic: That’s what happens when you allow magical thinking to take hold

Over the weekend, a most unusual social media firestorm erupted in response to a blog post by Daniel Neides, MD, MBA, Acting Medical Director of the Tanya I. Edwards Center for Integrative Medicine, Vice Chair and Chief Operating Officer of Cleveland Clinic Wellness, as well as the Associate Director of Clinical Education for The Cleveland […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Alternative medicine practitioners lionized in Cleveland

I’ve spent a lot of time in Cleveland. Indeed, I lived there for eight years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during which time I completed my surgery residency training, completed my PhD, and, even more importantly, met and married my wife. Even though I haven’t lived there for nearly 20 years—I can’t believe […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

A Cleveland Clinic doctor’s antivaccine rant: Facilitated by a culture of pseudoscience and published with the knowledge of the Clinic’s communications office

The fallout from the social media firestorm from the antivaccine rant written by the Medical Director of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute and published by Cleveland.com last Friday has abated but far from faded away. The offending physician, Dr. Daniel Neides, was forced to issue an apology, which was one of the least convincing apologies […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

The scam of “detox”: Ritual purification by another name

“You need to detox.” How many times have you heard or read this? Maybe a friend of yours suggested it for the New Year. Maybe you saw it on a website, in a magazine, or as part of an ad. I like to say sometimes, “Toujours les toxines,” because in many branches of alternative medicine […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

First China, next the world: The Chinese government gives a big boost to traditional Chinese medicine, just like Chairman Mao did

Everything old is new again in China. Just as Chairman Mao promoted the “integration” of traditional Chinese medicine with “Western” medicine 65 years ago, the Chinese government today is doing the same thing for the same reasons.