Denialism

Category: Altie Meds

  • The Beautiful Truth

    —

    by

    Chris
    in ,

    Guess what? A natural therapy can cure cancer, but evil doctors don’t want to tell you about it, because the medical establishment wants to make money with Mosanto and Dupont rather than cure your illnesses! Watch all about it. Update: Sorry, I missed Orac’s successful attack on this thing. Thanks Science Pundit, for pointing it…

  • 6 Cases of Shameless False Advertising

    —

    by

    Chris
    in ,

    are brought to you by mental floss. HT to Rebecca Tushnet via Frank Pasquale.

  • Swayze on woo

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    Mrs. Pal just called me upstairs where she was watching Barbara Walters. She (Walters, not Mrs Pal) was interviewing actor Patrick Swayze who is battling metastatic pancreatic cancer, a disease which will certainly kill him. Walters asked him quite a bit about the disease and treatment, and Swayze, whose answers were earthy, but pretty accurate,…

  • Where do you get your mercury?

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    There is an ongoing discussion amongst our Sciblings regarding our German counterparts at scienceblogs.de. Apparently they have some odd folks as science bloggers over there, including people who think ayurvedic heavy metals are good for you. In the tradition of countering speech with speech, I’m giving you this repost. More to come, I’m sure. –PalMD…

  • Se Habla “woo-woo”

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in , , ,

    So, America is changing. We have an African American president. The Latino population continues to grow. How can the alternative medicine community adjust to this demographic shift? What are they to do? I’m glad you asked! It turns out that immigrants are palomas ripe for the plucking. Now, we’ve talked about the ethics of alternative…

  • The Adman Can Attack Afflictions!

    —

    by

    Chris
    in

    The Times’ Amanda Schaffer covers a retrospective of public health posters on display at the National Academies until December 19th, 2008. The catalog (pdf) is online. My favorite: It reads: “No home remedy or quack doctor ever cured syphilis or gonorrhea. See your doctor or local health officer.” You could replace “syphilis or gonorrhea” with…

  • East meets West at Beth Israel—Cage Match!

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    When those of us who practice real medicine write about implausible medical claims, we are often accused of lacking compassion, as if offering false hope is the same as compassion. We are also accused of turning away from therapies that “couldn’t hurt”. After all, if someone wants to use aromatherapy, what’s the harm? The truth…

  • Why good medicine requires materialism

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in , , ,

    I don’t like to repost, but Steve Novella has some great pieces up right now, and this is directly related. –PalMD s I’ve clearly demonstrated in earlier posts, I’m no philosopher. But I am a doctor, and, I believe, a good one at that, and I find some of this talk about “non-materialist” perspectives in…

  • I’m a holistic doctor

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    Ok, I know I’ve been digging up old posts lately, but it’s because I love them so darn much. Thanks for your indulgence. –PalMD That’s apparently all it takes to be a “Holistic” practitioner. I’ve been searching online for their medical board, or for any consistent definition of “holistic medicine”. What’s involved? Where do I…

  • The Times on Woo: Covering the Basics

    —

    by

    Chris
    in

    The Times is running a series of articles today that cover the basics on woo, wooish thought, and one of my favorite subjects, pre-pure-food regulation impure food. Not much new here for Sciencebloggers, but these are good resources to help individuals think through the bogus claims we see so often in the marketing of woo.…