alternative medicine

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29126420/ Hm. So, people will even let clothing designers inject them with pee now? Stupid kills. Whoops, who knew?

Best Misleading Headline Ever: "Doctors eager to try 'mystical mumbo jumbo'" I think I love Bob Carr. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31083316/ I'm bolding my favorite part. I love that the reporter acknowledged that arguement and then throat-punched it. Then continued on kicking the ass out...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090607/ap_on_he_me/us_med_unproven_remedies "Ten years ago, Congress created a new federal agency to study supplements and unconventional therapies. But more than $2.5 billion of tax-financed research has not found any cures or major treatment advances, aside from...

I am happy with my local paper today! In a relatively long article, it discusses how pregnant women make frequent use of alternative medicine, specifically herbal remedies and other natural stuff such as raspberry leaves. It cites a study stating that these remedies have no effect, and even...

Judge rules teen must be treated for cancer A Minnesota judge has ruled 13-year-old Daniel Hauser of Sleepy Eye, who has a highly treatable form of cancer, must get medical treatment. By Amy Forliti , Associated Press Last update: May 15, 2009 - 10:29 AM Featured comment Close comment jchild...

As you may have heard, there's a flu epidemic in Mexico which is causing quite a bit of a scare. Even more scary is this email that not one, but two loons sent to the missus (translated from Spanish into English for your convenience): (If the English version at times does not seem to make...

Here's a bit of something of what's up here. I say way to go! You can probably imagine the uproar from the sCAMmers ranks...

What is the reason, historically, that orthodox medicine has risen to predominance? I hear frequent assertions that the predominance of orthodox medicine is political and as a result of lobbying by powerful, self protecting groups from about the middle of the 19th century as the primordial...

Hey, everyone! I am debating this guy about alternative medicine and I could use some help. I am trying to find good credible sources about the efficacy of St. John's wort. Does it work? Here is the guy's e-mail: I think you are wrong. 1. Whether something works or not is not dependent...

Naturopathic Medicine: A feminine approach to health care

Having just had a couple wins of against alt-med, I've gone out and spent $0-99 buying alt-med.info. I don't have the ability to research all of the subjects, from acupuncture to zygote-flavoured toffee, but I know that many medical experts lurk around here and wondered whether some might like...

Here folks are the official fairy tales that the government is telling us. After a lot of criticism last year the National Occupational Standards for CAM are up for review. The intention appears to be to invite comment from CAM practitioners, but I see no reason why people with a few grey cells...

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_11283875 Not particularly new, but its's interesting that there seems to be a correlation between a government having trouble providing health care to its population, and the promotion of these kinds of "traditional medicine" as a sort of stop-gap. China is...

There was a nice skeptical moment during Hugh Laurie's appearance on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on NBC last night. It turns out neither of them like alternative medicine very much. You can watch the clip online here until December 27th. (Adobe Flash required, as usual). It is just about...

Getting the public involved in politics sounds like a great idea, until you notice that the nutcases are most likely to be most vocal about their ideas... I do hope Mr. Obama has some really knowledgeable people at hand to weed the woo and preserve any grain of sensibility, however rare that...

I have a friend who keeps trying to tell me about Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures book. He gets very angry that I don't share his love and appreciation for Kevin Trudeau. My friend is an interesting character in and of himself. This question is not so much about how I can convince my friend...

There is a hilarious photo on this blog post. But there's a rather serious message underlying it.

Healer to the stars in court battle to save his reputation Could be one to watch. While it says that the "action will bring unprecedented scrutiny to bear on the methods and expertise" of Dr. Ali, who it describes as "Britain's best-known champion of integrated medicine", the issues raised...

Indicted War Criminal Radovan Karadžić is also a practitioner of alternative medicine and other questionable beliefs such as HQE (Human Quantum Energy). He has gone from killing people to fleecing them. :boggled...

Has someone mentioned this before? The Walgreens pharmacy chain (and probably other drugstores) have jumped on the bandwagon and created their own brand of Airborne. "Wal-born"! I'm not kidding. I have some fun with this on my blog, proposing a product called Placebo-rn...

Ok, well, maybe not. I'm not sure. Out of all the ridonkulous ideas in "Natural Cures," his claim that sunscreen causes cancer seemed to be one of the most absurd. But I was reading an article on cnn.com today that got me clicking around and there are lots of folks out there claiming that...

This is a shameless plug for an article that I printed in my newspaper last month. It has generated several letters to the editor and some harassing telephone calls. I thought you might like to see how skepticism looks when its written for the mainstream media. I went to great lengths to make...

Nice story. It's good to see this sort of news. http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/06/17/cancer.fraud.ap/index.html

US readers might be interested in the talk I gave at Yale on 12th May. It is wriiten up as "Integrative Baloney @Yale" Yale is no worse than 40 or so other US universities in its embrace of quackery, but the presence on YouTube of much of their recent symposium means that we know more about...

This time by Simon Singh and Professor Edzard Ernst in today’s Daily Mail: Details of their new book Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial can be found here: http://www.play.com/Books/Books/4-/3703713/-/Product.html?searchstring=trick+or+treatment&searchsource=0

Hi A good friend of mine suffers from terrible bouts of gout. He's considering getting on this herbal remedy - http://www.goutcure.com/. All the reviews I have found on Google etc seem fairly positive. Any doctors or medical folks on the board have any thoughts on this one? Mostly, I want to...

As a scientist, I used to think crystal energy therapy was hokum. Not any more! As a scientist, I was always sceptical of alternative therapies. You see, I am used to thinking in terms of trials and all manner of sciency things, which are not commonly found in the alternative medical sphere...

Jim Carrey, lovable actor whom we came to know and love from works such as In Living Color, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, has taken on a new cause. What's that, you ask? He seems to fancy himself an expert and advocate for depression and believes vitamins are all that are...

I was watching a repeat of Dead Ringers on Dave recently and came across this little titbit I thought you'd all like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWYB5oKdOs

....if any of us can stand her simpering at the camera any more. Yes, this time it's hypnotherapy. . Not entirely woo of course, but grossly over-hyped. Didn't I see the other week the new NICE guidance on smoking cessation, which said hypnosis is useless? Can't find it now!