Publishing one excellent book is an accomplishment; publishing two in one year is a truly outstanding achievement. In 2008 Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh published a landmark book Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine. I reviewed it on this blog last summer. It is particularly important since Ernst is a former advocate
I’m always on the lookout for skeptical depictions of mediums in fiction, such as Robert Browning’s delicious poem “Mr. Sludge the Medium.” I just found another example where I least expected, and I wanted to share it with readers of Swift. Latin American literature is famous for “magical realism” and its fiction is replete with
The chiropractic industry must be feeling the pressure. Billboards, signs on the sides of buses, chiropractic victims’ organizations, and lawsuits are telling the world that chiropractic neck adjustments can cause strokes. The risk is very small, but it is very real. We have addressed the subject before on this blog here, here, and here.Chiropractors are
People in the Amish community have been using “The New Concept in Treating Burns” and their experience is recounted in a little booklet by that title. It is a compilation of articles, testimonials, and letters to the editor of a monthly newspaper Plain Interests, published in Millersburg PA. The treatment, involving B&W ointment and dressings
Genewize http://www.genewize.com/is a new company offering “100% Product Personalization from Your Personal DNA Assessment.” They analyze your DNA to identify certain selected SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) and use the data to tweak the ingredients of the nutritional products they want to sell you (containing everything from vitamins to spinach powder). They previous offered a therapeutic
Sandra Quincy writes from Australia to tell us about her successful anti-quackery activities “down under.” I thought that you might be interested in the success that I have had with getting a magnetic product removed from sale in Australia. It all started when a Century Mail booklet fell out of my October 2008 Reader’s Digest.
Psychiatry is arguably the least science-based of the medical specialties. Because of that, it comes in for a lot of criticism. Much of the criticism is justified, but some critics make the mistake of dismissing even the possibility that psychiatry could be scientific. They throw the baby out with the bathwater. I agree that psychiatry
Much nonsense has been written in the guise of longevity medicine. In Fantastic Voyage, Ray Kurzweil explains why he takes 250 pills every day and spends one day a week at a clinic getting IV vitamins, chelation, and acupuncture. He is convinced this regimen will keep him alive long enough for science to figure out
It is useless for skeptics to argue with someone who doesn’t play by the rules of science and reason. If no amount of evidence will change your opponent’s mind, you are wasting your breath. I recently read Flock of Dodos (no relation to the movie of the same name). It’s a hilarious no-holds-barred send-up of
In a previous post, I suggested that informed consent could sometimes be misused. South Dakota has provided a clear example of such misuse and has set a frightening precedent reminiscent of Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984. A law went into effect in July, 2008, requiring that any woman seeking an abortion in South Dakota
