December 9th, 2010 by Mark Crislip, M.D. in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion, Research, True Stories
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The worst part of flying is the takeoff and landing. Not that I am nervous about those parts of the trip, it is that I am all electronic. Once I have to turn off my electronic devices, all I am left with is my own thoughts or what is in the seat pocket in front of me.
Since there is nothing to be gained from quiet introspection, I am stuck with either the in-flight magazine or SkyMall. I usually choose the latter. SkyMall, for those of you who do not fly, is a collection of catalogs bound in one volume. I have occasionally purchased products found in SkyMall and thumb through it with mild interest.
This time one product caught my eye, the Aculife home acupuncture/acupressure device. I had never noticed the “health”-related products in SkyMall before, usually looking for electronic gadgets that I really do not need. I was curious. How many other products besides Aculife are in the catalogue? According to the interwebs, about 100,000,000 Americans fly every year and well over half a billion people world wide. A lot of people can potentially look at SkyMall, including the occasional skeptic.
I have written about the many styles of acupuncture in the past: Hand and foot and tongue and ear and head and Chinese and Japanese. So many meridians and acupuncture points, how does the body find room for it all? Aculife makes it all simple. It’s all gauche, er, I mean in the left hand.
According to makers of Aculife, you can now “help strengthen your health with the latest ancient technology.” Of course I can, and for $199.95 I had better be able to. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
September 16th, 2010 by Mark Crislip, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion, Research
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Humans love to find patterns in the world. Sometimes patterns exist, sometimes they are imaginary. Sometimes you can see a pattern that may be interesting and ignore its significance. As a resident I used to say that anyone who smokes three packs of cigarettes a day has to be schizophrenic. It was meant more as a joke when, in fact, it was later discovered that tobacco helps ameliorate the symptoms of schizophrenia. I need to pay more attention.
Part of my job is to look for patterns as a key to the patients diagnosis. Diseases and pathogens tend to (more or less) cause reproducible signs and symptoms and looking for that pattern is often the most helpful clue towards finding the diagnosis. Of course things are never as easy as one would like, as you have to consider whether you are seeing common manifestations of a common disease, uncommon manifestations of a common disease, common manifestations of a uncommon disease and, the hardest, uncommon manifestations of an uncommon disease. When I have a complex or uncertain cause, I explicitly run through that, and other, litanies so I do not miss a unusual diagnosis.
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has, at least to my way of thinking, two patterns. I see the occasional CFS patient in clinic and, I hope, pay attention to their disease patterns. I keep in mind I may be seeing a pattern that does not exist, but looking for disease patterns is what doctors are trained to do. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
July 8th, 2010 by Mark Crislip, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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Some universities have more cachet than others. On the West Coast it’s Stanford that has the reputation as the best. Then there’s Oxford, Yale, and MIT. I would wager that in most people’s minds the creme de la creme is Harvard, where you find the best of the best. If Harvard is involved, a project gains an extra gobbet of credibility. Brigham and Women’s Hospital also has similar reputation in U.S. as one the hospitals associated with only Harvard and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) — premier university, premier hospital, premier journal.
So if Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital are offering continuing medical education (CME) for acupuncture, there must be something to it, right? A course called “Structural Acupuncture for Physicians” must have some validity. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
June 10th, 2010 by Mark Crislip, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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I write this post with a great deal of trepidation. The last time I perused the Medical Voices website I found nine questions that needed answering. So I answered them. One of the consequences of that blog entry was the promise that Medical Voices was poised to “tear my arguments to shreds.” Tear to shreds! Such a painful metaphor.
They specified that the shred tearing would be accomplished during a live debate, rather than a written response. While Dr. Gorski gave excellent reasons why such a debate is counterproductive, I am disinclined for more practical reasons. I am a slow thinker and a lousy debater and have never, ever, won a debate at home. If I cannot win pitted against my wife, what chance would I have against the combined might of the doctors and scientists at Medical Voices? My fragile psyche could not withstand the onslaught.
Still, there is much iron pyrite to be mined at Medical Voices and it may provide me for at least a years worth of entries. Please forgive me if I seem nervous or distracted. I have a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head and it may fall at any time. My writings may, without warning, be torn to pieces by the razor sharp logical sword of Medical Voices. Or maybe not. It is my understanding that Medical Voices will only answer with a debate, so maybe I am safe from total ego destruction.
This month, as I perused Medical Voices, I found it difficult to choose an article. So much opportunity and I have limited time to write. I finally decided on Why the New Mumps Outbreak Puts You At Risk by Robert J. Rowen, M.D. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
July 23rd, 2009 by Mark Crislip, M.D. in Better Health Network, Quackery Exposed
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While there are many taxonomies of SCAM, one thing almost all alternative therapies have in common is they are originally the de novo discovery of one lone individual. Working outside of the mainstream, they are the gadflies who see farther because those around them are midgets.
Hanneman conceives of homeopathy, the treatment of all disease.
Palmer conceives the cause of all disease and its treatment in chiropractic
Mikao Usui, while having a mid-life crisis, conceives Reiki.
Virgin births all. These pioneers boldly go where no man has gone before.
Others have been less acclaimed after seeking out new life. An example is Virginia Livingston, MD, the discoverer of the cause of all cancer (1). She discovered a bacterium, the cause of cancer, she called Progenitor cryptocides, which, unfortunately only she could grow. Her therapies include an autogenous ‘vaccine” made from your own urine, which will probably preclude widespread use even in alternative therapies circles. I wonder if Jenny would object to vaccines if there were naturally derived from the patients urine?
Discovering a new form of pathogenic microbiology that no one else can see or grow is not uncommon, since people seem to be unable to recognise artifact on slides, be it Oscillococcinum being seen by Joseph Roy 200 years ago or Virginia Livingston in the 1960’s. Sometimes I regret the discovery of H. pylori as a cause of gastritis as it gives the alternative microbiologists a medical Galileo to point at. H. pylori is used as an example, erroneously, of a bacteria causing disease that was laughed at by the medical establishment (Parenthetically, as my flawed memory has it, while I was an Infectious Disease Fellow the data for H. pylori came trickling in. I remember discussing the papers with one of my attendings who was an expert in GI infections. We all thought is was an interesting hypothesis and waited further data with interest. I cannot remember anyone dismissing the idea out of hand with derisive laughter. But then, I remain convinced that infections are the cause of all disease, at least the diseases that matter).
A letter from a reader led me to another lone reseacher who has discovered the cause and treatment of many, if not all, diseases. So may I introduce to you, Trevor Marshall, the developer of the Marshall Protocol. (As I have said many time, I want something in medicine named after me, and it is not the glove breaking during an exam. “Damn, I just had a Crislip. I need to go and clean my nails.” If Swan or Groshong can get some silly little catheter named after them, well, I should be good for some eponym). You have not heard of Trevor Marshall? Often the fate of originality is to languish in obscurity.
The Marshall Protocol has all the characteristics of modern alternative therapy: a single discoverer, a hitherto undiscovered biology, an unproven therapeutic intervention and one of the most aggravating issues in SCAM’s: Taking a scientific truth the size of a molehill and transmogrifying it into a Cascade Range of exaggerated disease etiology and treatment. Unlike most SCAM’s, however, as best as I can tell Dr Marshall does not seem to be in the business of making a business from his discovery, although he does have patent applications for his protocol.
Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
