Tag: integrative medicine

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Bad science Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Quackademic medicine versus being “science-based”

Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra

A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by the a reporter from the Georgetown student newsletter about its integrative medicine program. It got me to thinking how delusion that one’s work is science-based can lead to collaborations with New Age “quantum” mystics like Deepak Chopra. “Integrative medicine” doctors engaging in what I like to refer to as quackademic medicine all claim to be “evidence-based” or “science-based.” The words apparently do not mean what integrative medicine academics think they mean.

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Credulous promotion of “integrating” quackery into medicine

Snake Oil and Grift
While it's true that many, if not most, snake oil salesmen believe in their quackery, it's also always about the grift.

Over the last 25 years, medical academia has increasingly embraced “integrative medicine” (i.e., the “integration” of pseudoscience and quackery with medicine). However, it has had help normalizing this new situation. That help comes from the press. Here’s yet another example.

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Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Integrative medicine as infiltrative pseudoscience: Pushback against quackery

Mitchell and Webb Homeopathic A&E
Mitchell and Webb Homeopathic A&E

For a quarter of a century, quackery and pseudoscience have been integrated into medicine through the construct of “integrative medicine” and into academic medicine in the form of quackademic medicine. Unfortunately, there has been little pushback. That’s why it’s good to see a recent article in The Surgeon decrying this phenomenon. We need more of this.

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Cancer Integrative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The quackery of “naturopathic oncology” is metastasizing

Metastasis
Metastasis

“Integrating” naturopathic care with real medicine started out largely in academic medical centers. Unfortunately, the cancer of integrative oncology appears to be metastasizing to community hospitals.

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Cancer Integrative medicine Quackery

Defining “integrative oncology” and failing

Integrative oncology

Earlier this month, the Society for Integrative Oncology published an article attempting to define what “integrative oncology” is. The definition, when it isn’t totally vague, ignores the pseudoscience at the heart of integrative oncology and medicine.