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

Sh*t naturopaths say, part 5: Ozone therapy, honey, and attacks on Change.org petitions

Those of us living in Michigan who support science-based medicine have been forced to deal with a bill that, if passed, would grant practitioners of unscientific “medicine” a wide scope of practice—almost as wide as that of primary care practitioners such as pediatricians, internists, and family practice doctors. I’m referring to HB 4531, a bill […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

An antivaccine family practitioner announces his intent to commit malpractice, later deletes his antivaccine manifesto

One major thing that differentiated science-based medicine (SBM) from alternative medicine and quackery is that in SBM there is a generally accepted standard of care. This was even the case back in the days before the proliferation of evidence-based guidelines, in which professional societies and expert panels try their best to synthesize what is often […]

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

Integrative medicine and spoon bending at the University of Alberta and "Bigfoot skepticism"

After over 11 years at this blogging thing, I periodically start to fear that I’m becoming jaded. In particular, after following the infiltration of quackery in the form of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), now more commonly known as “integrative medicine,” because it integrates CAM with evidence-based medicine. Of course, in reality, what “integrative medicine” […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

False "balance" about Stanislaw Burzynski's cancer quackery rears its ugly head again

One common theme that has been revisited time and time again on this blog since its very founding is the problem of how science and medicine are reported. For example, back when I first started blogging, one thing that used to drive me absolutely bonkers was the tendency of the press to include in any […]

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

The quackery that is "naturopathic oncology"

With a bill to license naturopaths (HB 4531) wending its way through the Michigan legislature supported by supplement manufacturers, its current status being in consideration by the full House of Representatives, periodically I feel the need to provide ammunition to the bill’s opponents, because we need to protect the patients in the state of Michigan […]