July 6th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed
Tags: Big Pharma, Buy Doctors Lunch, Commercial Support, Drug Companies, Drug Rep Lunches, Drug Reps, Gary Schwitzer, General Medicine, Health Journalism, HealthNewsReview.org, Industry-Supported Medical Education, Misinformed, Misleading, Naive, Pharma-Paid Lunches, Pharmaceutical Companies, Pharmaceutical Reps, Pharmacology, Slate.com
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“Appetite for Instruction: Why Big Pharma should buy your doctor lunch sometimes” is the headline of an article on Slate.com that has upset many readers. I’m not terribly upset about it because it just seems too naive and misinformed to get upset about. The final line of the piece tells you all you need to know about the tone of the column:
“Ousting commercial support is creating a huge chasm in medical education, leaving doctors not only hungry but also starved for knowledge.”
A number of online comments were posted in reaction to the piece. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
July 2nd, 2010 by Shadowfax in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Humor, Medical Art, Opinion, Quackery Exposed
Tags: Anti-Vaccine Movement, CAM, Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, Darryl Cunningham, Homeopathic Medicine, Homeopathic Treatment, Homeopathy, Medical Quackery, Pseudomedicine, Vaccine Conspiracy
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Here’s a wonderful cartoon primer by Darryl Cunningham on the fundamentals of homeopathic “medicine”:
To see the entire 19-page cartoon strip, click here.
Well worth the read, especially for anyone who might be considering homeopathic treatment. This author also put together a nice explication of the Wakefield Autism Vaccine Fraud.
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
July 1st, 2010 by David H. Gorski, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: Acupuncture, American Board of Naturopathic Oncology, CAM, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, Conventional Medicine, CTCA, Homeopathy, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Naturopathic Oncology, Naturopathy, NCCAM, OncANP, Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians, Pseudomedicine, Pseudoscience, Pseudoscientific Cult, Qi, Quackademic Medicine, Reiki, Science Based Medicine, Scientific Medicine, Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center, Western Medicine, Whole Patient, Wholistic Medicine, Woo
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On “wholistic” medicine
If there’s one aspect of so-called “alternative medicine” and “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) is that its practitioners tout as being a huge advantage over what they often refer to sneeringly as “conventional” or “scientific” medicine is that–or so its practitioners claim–alt-med treats the “whole patient,” that it’s “wholistic” in a way that the evil reductionist “Western” science-based medicine can’t be.
Supposedly, we reductionistic, unimaginative physicians only focus on disease and ignore the “whole patient.” Of course, to me this claim is belied by the hectoring to which my own primary care physician has subjected me about my horrible diet and lack of exercise on pretty much every visit I’ve had with her, but then maybe she’s an anomaly, along with Dr. Lipson on this very blog and pretty much every other primary care doctor I’ve ever dealt with. Anecdotal experience, I know, but since alt-med mavens appear to value anecdotal evidence above pretty much all else I thought it appropriate to mention here. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
June 27th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Medical Art, News, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: Illegal Organ Trafficking, Lack of Organ Donors, Organ Harvesting, Organ Transplantation, Patients Waiting For a Transplant
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I don’t plan to sell my organs on eBay, but as organ transplantation, lack of donors, and illegal organ trafficking gets more and more serious, this infographic comes just in time. It provides some interesting answers to questions like, “How much does a liver cost in South Korea?” and “How many patients are waiting for transplants?” Click on the image for the original larger version:
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
June 24th, 2010 by Harriet Hall, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: CAM, Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, Conventional Medicine, Energy Medicine, Eugenie Mielczarek, Evidence-Based, Informational Medicine, Medical Science, Mystical, Mythical, New Science of Healing, Phenomenon, Physics, Placebo Effect, Pseudoscience, Quantum Theory, Science Based Medicine, The Field, The Living Matrix, Traditional Medicine
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It’s boring to try to ferret out reliable health information from dry medical journals. It’s easier and more fun to watch a movie. A new movie promises to change the way you think about your health. To bring you breakthroughs that will transform your understanding of how to get well and stay well. To share the discoveries of leading researchers and health practitioners about miracle cures that traditional medicine can’t explain.
If this makes your baloney detector light up, good for you!
The Living Matrix: A Film on the New Science of Healing is an atrociously bad movie that falls squarely in the tradition of What the Bleep Do We Know? In his book Nonsense on Stilts, Massimo Pigliucci characterized the “Bleep” movie as “one of the most spectacular examples of a horribly tangled mess of science and nonsense,” and this new movie is more of the same. Bleep was just silly, but The Living Matrix is potentially dangerous because it might persuade patients to make poor decisions about their medical care. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
