On Michael Specter, author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives, and the danger of science denial:
Given that more than half of the video is devoted to discussing vaccine denialism, supplements, and HIV/AIDS denialism, I think Specter’s talk is quite appropriate for this blog. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
In his new book Breakthrough! How the 10 Greatest Discoveries in Medicine Saved Millions and Changed Our View of the World, Jon Queijo describes what he believes are the 10 greatest discoveries. Nine of them are uncontroversial discoveries that have been on other top-10 lists, but his 10th choice is one that no other list of top discoveries has ever included.
Queijo realizes this, and even admits in his introduction that a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine refused to review his book because there is no such thing as alternative medicine, only treatments that work and treatments that don’t. But he “respectfully disagrees.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
One advantage of having a blog is that I can sometimes tap into the knowledge of my readers to help me out.
As many readers know, a few of the SBM bloggers (myself included) will be appearing at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS) today (Saturday, April 17). Since the topic of our panel discussion is going to be the infiltration of quackademic medicine into medical academia, I thought that now would be a very good time for me to update my list of medical schools and academic medical centers in the U.S. and Canada that have embraced (or at least decided to tolerate) quackademic medicine in their midst. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
In the Wall Street Journal last week was a particularly bad article by Melinda Beck about acupuncture. While there was token skepticism (by Edzard Ernst, of course, who is the media’s go-to expert for CAM), the article credulously reported the marketing hype of acupuncture proponents.
Toward the end of the article Beck admits that “some critics” claim that acupuncture provides nothing more than a placebo effect, but this was followed by the usual canard:
“I don’t see any disconnect between how acupuncture works and how a placebo works,” says radiologist Vitaly Napadow at the Martinos center. “The body knows how to heal itself. That’s what a placebo does, too.”
That is a bold claim, and very common among CAM proponents, especially acupuncturists. As the data increasingly shows that acupuncture (and other implausible treatments) provides no benefit beyond placebo, we hear the special pleading that placebos work also.
But is that true? It turns out there is a literature on the placebo effect itself, and the evidence suggests that placebos generally do not work. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
Here’s some advice I have given teenage boys who are going toe-to-toe with their mothers about a health issue:
Don’t go toe-to-toe with your mother; it’s a no-win situation. Either you are right, and you are looked at as a “smarty-pants” or you are wrong, and have given her a huge “I told you so.” If, on the other hand, you keep quiet and listen to what she’s saying, it’s a win-win: either she’s right and you learn something, or she’s wrong, and you have been vindicated.
Fathers often pipe in that this applies to wives as well. Mom’s don’t seem to disagree (for some mysterious reason).
While this may be sound relational advice, it also needs to be heeded by the medical community in its relationship to “complimentary and alternative medicine” or CAM. I am not saying we shouldn’t be angry and frustrated with the CAM purveyors who are harming and even killing people (such as the anti-vaccine movement). I am not saying that we should embrace CAM and put it at anywhere near equal footing with our profession. What I am saying is that in our enthusiasm to win the argument, we can undermine our own credibility. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
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