Two years ago, I took note of an "energy healer" named Charlie Goldsmith and an incredibly poor "clinical trial" being touted as evidence of his healing abilities. It now turns out that Goldsmith is following a trail blazed by celebrity psychic Tyler Henry and has his own TV show on TLC. His claims are no more plausible or supported by evidence now than they were then.
Tag: Reiki
The unreality of reiki and distance healing
Well, it’s 2017. In a mere 17 days, unreality will become reality, as the most unlikely and terrifying President in my lifetime is sworn in. Consequently, as I was thinking about what I’d like to write about for my first post of the new year, only one thing came to mind. Only one thing that I routinely apply my Insolence, both Respectful and Not-So-Respectful, to achieves the level of unreality that our politics entered in November and will amplify in a little more than two weeks. Yes, it’s time for a reiki post. OK, I admit it. A reader sent …
The Cleveland Clinic: Promoting dubious diet advice on Twitter and beyond
I’ve mentioned on quite a few occasions that there’s a quote attributed to philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer that is much beloved of cranks: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. I also like to point out that Schopenhauer probably never said this and just how silly the thought behind this quote is when you think about it. Unfortunately, as I was perusing Twitter yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of this quote, but not in the way quacks and cranks usually intend. Rather, I was thinking …
Quackery expands in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
I’ve been writing about this topic so long—ever since the very beginning of this blog—that it seems as though I’ve always been doing it even though this blog has been in existence only 11 years and I didn’t really come to appreciate the problem until after I had started this blog. No, I’m not referring to the antivaccine movement, which is another longstanding concern of mine. This time, I’m referring to what I like to refer to as “quackademic medicine,” defined as the infiltration of unscientific and pseudoscientific medicine into medical academia. Indeed, there was a time when I tried …
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” really does is to integrate prescientific, pseudoscientific, and antiscientific quackery with real medicine, and that’s what I mean. I thought I had seen it all in academic medical centers and medical schools: the faith healing that is reiki at National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer …
An Australian “energy healer” begs medicine to take him seriously
Even though I’ve taken on the ‘nym of a fictional computer in a 35-year-old British science fiction series whose key traits were an arrogant and condescending manner and the ability to tap into every computer of the galactic federation any time he wanted to, in reality I am just one person. That means, try as I might, I can’t keep up with everything that might interest me enough to blog, much less blog it all. What that means is that occasionally something catches my attention, even though it’s three months old. So it was with this article in—of all places—Elle …
No, it is not okay to give patients a treatment with no proved medical benefits
Et tu, Scientific American? A few of you seem to know what will catch my attention and push my buttons, because over the past couple of days a few of you sent me an article published in Scientific America by an internal medicine resident named Allison Bond entitled Sometimes It’s Okay to Give Patients a Treatment with No Proved Medical Benefits. Yes, a title like that is akin to waving the proverbial cape in front of a bull. Of course, I doubt that Bond herself came up with that title; editors usually come up with such titles. Still, the title …
In the pages of Nature, a full-throated defense of “integrating” quackery into medicine
Oh, no, Nature. Not you. Not again. It wasn’t enough that you were busted shilling for traditional Chinese medicine with a big, glossy advertising supplement a few years ago. I thought you had learned your lesson after that, as you didn’t do it again. Maybe I was wrong. Granted, your offense this time is not quite as bad as accepting cash from Saishunkan Pharmaceutical Co., ltd. and the Kitasato University Oriental Medicine Research Center to put together what was in essence pure propaganda for quackery, but, on the other hand, I do have to be worried that you might be …
A portrait of quackademia triumphant: Georgetown University
I frequently discuss a disturbing phenomenon known as “quackademic medicine.” Basically, quackademic medicine is a phenomenon that has taken hold over the last two decades in medical academia in which once ostensibly science-based medical schools and academic medical centers embrace quackery. This embrace was once called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) but among quackademics the preferred term is now “integrative medicine.” Of course, when looked at objectively, integrative medicine is far more a brand than a specialty. Specifically, it’s a combination of rebranding some science-based modalities, such as nutrition and exercise, as somehow being “alternative” or “integrative” with the integration …
Mouse magic, or How lab mice learned to stop worrying and trust the healing energy
I frequently call homeopathy The One Quackery to Rule Them All, but there are times when I am not so sure that that’s the case. You see, there is…another. I’m referring, of course, to what is referred to as “energy medicine.” What energy medicine modalities have in common is that they postulate that there is some sort “energy field” around humans that can be manipulated for therapeutic intent or that somehow practitioners can channel “healing energy” from elsewhere. For example, as I’ve discussed many times before, reiki is based on the concept that reiki masters can channel this fantastical healing …