I hope my U.S. readers have all had a happy Thanksgiving. Today has been known at least since the mid-1970s as Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. Whether it’s still true or not, given the relentless proliferation, progression, and metastasis—yes, the use of terms related to cancer is intentional—of holiday sales right up until Christmas, I don’t know. I do know that I plan on going nowhere near any store bigger than a convenience store until next week if I can possibly help it. I’m also sitting back and congratulating myself on one of the smartest decisions …
Tag: Ebola
The invasion of well-meaning quacks into West Africa continues apace, part deux
I realize that I risk getting repetitive by writing about this again, but it’s a rich vein that just keeps on producing and producing. It also demonstrates that, for every tragedy as huge as the ongoing Ebola outbreak that has killed over 5,000 people in West Africa thus far, there always exist well-meaning people who are into such utter quackery that they can’t help but risk making things worse. In my talk at Skepticon on Saturday I discussed how The Secret’s Law of Attraction is, to my mind, the Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine, the idea that, if you want …
The invasion of well-meaning quacks into West Africa continues apace
Here we go yet again. I’ve been interested in the Ebola outbreak that’s been going on for months in west Africa for a number of reasons. First, it’s a bad disease, and this is the largest outbreak in history. over 5,000 people have died. Second, there’s been a lot of unreasonable fear mongering about the disease here in the US far beyond its actual threat level to the country. Third, of course, and perhaps most pertinent given the usual subject matter of this blog, is that the Ebola outbreak in Africa has been a godsend for quacks, cranks, and conspiracy …
Better late than never: Conspiracy theories about the CDC and Ebola
Medical conspiracy theories tend to involve “someone” hiding something from the public. I like to refer to this as the fallacy of “secret knowledge.” That “someone” hiding the “secret knowledge” is usually the government, big pharma, or other ill-defined nefarious forces. The “secret knowledge” being hidden comes invariably in one of two flavors. Either “they” are hiding cures for all sorts of diseases that conventional medicine can’t cure, or “they” are hiding evidence of harm due to something in medicine. Although examples of the former are common, such as the “hidden cure for cancer,” it is examples of the latter …
Throwing everything but the kitchen sink, quackery-wise, at Ebola
You know how I sometimes lament that I’ve been writing too much about the hijinx of the antivaccine movement, its crimes against reason, science, and medicine? It’s become a bit of a trope around here at times, to the point where, when I bring it up, I tell myself I shouldn’t be repeating myself so often. Then I do it anyway because, heck, this is blogging and it’s impossible to blog for a decade without repeating one’s self. Besides, if I’m to start navel-gazing here in a blog sense, a successful blog actually needs certain repeating tropes, as long as …
Here they come to save the day! Homeopaths vs. Ebola, again
If there is one thing that the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Africa has revealed to the world, it’s the full extent of quackery that is out there and advertised as being able to treat deadly diseases such as Ebola. The deadlier the disease, the more quackery is out there, amplified by the scariness of the disease. And, make no mistake about it, Ebola is scary. No, it’s not scary here in the U.S., where the odds of the average person catching the disease, particularly if he’s not a health care worker who’s directly cared for a patient with Ebola, is …
Ebola, "right-to-try," and placebo legislation
One of the biggest medical conspiracy theories for a long time has been that there exist out there all sorts of fantastic cures for cancer and other deadly diseases but you can’t have them because (1) “they” don’t want you to know about them (as I like to call it, the Kevin Trudeau approach) and/or (2) the evil jackbooted thugs of the FDA are so close-minded and blinded by science that they crush any attempt to market such drugs and, under the most charitable assessment under this myth, dramatically slow down the approval of such cures. The first version usually …
Oh goody. Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Day is fast approaching.
A mere couple of weeks ago, I was beginning to “celebrate” a week designated to celebrate the sheer quackiness of the quackery that is naturopathy. True, that’s not what the woo-friendly Senators and Representatives who imposed Naturopathic Medicine Week 2014 on a disinterested world that didn’t need, want, or understand it. They represented it as a great thing, the “integrating” of the “best of both worlds,” those worlds to them being conventional science-based medicine and alternative medicine. To those of us who support science-based medicine, it was integrating cow pie with apple pie, as Mark Crislip would put it. Let’s …
An old "friend" thinks Ayurvedic "auto-urine therapy" can cure Ebola
I’m beginning to feel that I’m flogging a topic a bit too hard again. Usually, this happens primarily when I’m on a roll over some particularly tasty ridiculous tidbit of antivaccine nonsense. This time around, it’s not so much antivaccine nonsense (although some did manage to slip its way into the discussion) but rather Ebola virus disease. In particular, it’s the conspiracy theories and quackery that have sprung up in the media like so much kudzu smothering rational and science-based discourse, revealing the depths of distrust based on politics, pseudoscience, and just plain nonsense that our public health officials have …
How "they" view "us," Ebola edition
I realize that yesterday’s post was even longer than my usual post (and, given who I am, that’s saying something), but there was a thought that popped up last night about the Ebola conspiracy theories that I discussed that I can’t resist finishing the week on with a (hopefully) much more concise post. (I know, it’s me; conciseness is not exactly what Orac is about.) I know that, after a decade at this whole skeptical blogging thing, it shouldn’t bother me, but it still does. I’m referring to what these Ebola virus disease conspiracy theories say about how “they” view …