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Announcements Blogging Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Déjà vu all over again, or: Orac goes, “D’oh!”

I don’t know if other bloggers out there have experienced anything like this, but I’ve experienced this a few times since starting this blog. Last night I started writing about an article that—or so I thought— was the perfect distillation of the message of the NCCIH and its desire to co-opt nonpharmacological treatments for pain […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The long strange road to normalizing the “integration” of quackery with medicine

It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered Glenn Sabin. You might remember him, though. He runs a consulting firm, FON Therapeutics, which is dedicated to the promotion of “integrative” health, or, as I like to put it, the “integration of pseudoscience and quackery with science-based medicine. What I remember most about Sabin is how […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine History Medicine Naturopathy Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

In which I am compared to Donald Trump by a pro-quackademic medicine activist…again!

John Weeks has long been an activist for alternative medicine—excuse me, “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or, as it’s more commonly referred to these days, “integrative medicine.” Despite his having zero background in scientific research or the design and execution of experiments and clinical trials, for some bizarre reason in May he was appointed editor […]

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

JAMA: A willing accomplice to co-opting “nonpharmacologic” treatments for pain as being “alternative” or “complementary”

That I’m not a fan of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH, formerly known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, or NCCAM) should come as no surprise to anyone. Basically, from its very inception as the Office of Alternative Medicine in the early 1990s to its growth to large […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics

NCCIH: Co-opting “nonpharmacologic” treatments for pain as being “alternative” or “complementary”

I’ve been critical of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), which was until relatively recently known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) ever since I first discovered that it existed, lo, these many years ago. When I first discovered NCCIH, what struck me is how much pseudoscience it […]