Sysiphus Speaks

And unlike the other pseudo-medicine alerts, there are occasionally reports of various disciplinary actions against chiropractors. I do not report these in the Points of Interest, as I figure that there are dirt balls who will take advantage of patients, both financially or otherwise, in all fields. But this one caught my eye: Iowa chiropractor admits exorcisms and bartering sex for treatment of patients. It wasn't the sex I found odd, but exorcisms.

What could be worse than snakes in a plane? I was flying from New York to San Francisco Monday. We were half way across the US when there was an announcement. “If there is a licensed medical provider on the flight, please identify yourself. We have a medical problem.”

You cannot be pro-vaccination and turn around and support naturopathic practice expansion, at least not without some major cognitive dissonance buzzing around in your head. The two are mutually exclusive.

You do not see the department of Astronomy bragging about bringing in astrologers into their midst. But in medicine? We have Development of a hospital reiki training program: training volunteers to provide reiki to patients, families, and staff in the acute care setting.

April 2 was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day for naturopaths, only without the heart-warming ending.

I received a press release today: Massage Shown Effective Treating Female Infertility In a landmark 10-year study, a therapeutic massage replaced surgery and was found effective treating the most common causes of female infertility. The website certainly looks impressive but what might this landmark study be? It was Ten-year Retrospective Study on the Efficacy of a Manual Physical Therapy to Treat Female Infertility It has a number interesting methodological curiosities.

Now I have a better study that encapsulates the placebo effect: Conservatives report, but liberals display, greater happiness published in science.

In February, the State of Florida issued an order telling Brian Clement to cease and desist from the unlicensed practice of medicine. It ordered him to pay a fine as well. In March, the State said "never mind!"

The inadequacy of evidence-based medicine often rears its head in guidelines, where fantasy based therapies sneak in based on flawed evidence. For example, Clinical Practice Guideline Allergic Rhinitis,

Homeopathy is nothing that does nothing but a legalized nothing. Reading Conditions Under Which Homeopathic Drugs May be Marketed is kind of sad, the FDA being required to recognize the processes by which products are added to the HPUS such as provings. It is a sorry sight that an organization that usually is based on reality is forced by law to use fantasy.

There are a lot of different kinds of energy. What is not on this list? All the unmeasured and unmeasurable energies that define many of the pseudo-medicines. Qi, innate intelligence, reiki, therapeutic touch, etc. All the mystical and magical energies purported to be felt and manipulated by their practitioners.

It is therefore with skepticism that I view House Bill 1978 and Senate Bill 1870 (the bills are identical) recently introduced in the Minnesota Legislature. The bills have several suspicious provisions which seem tailor-made to raise unfounded parental alarm.

When I Google the Haffkine Institute, I find a venerable infectious diseases organization in India. Operating since 1899, it is a solid ID institution with a long history of research and wide ranging interests in the diagnosis and treatment of infections diseases. They have dabbled in herbs and ayurvedic therapies, but mostly in vitro studies. Nothing to support a diagnosis of Clevelandclinicatosis. Until now.

Take Complementary Therapies Can Boost Survival in Cancer Patients on Medscape . I suspect that the lead author, Moshe Frenkel, and I do not have the same understanding of reality.

The reason that the ILADS approach to Lyme is not embraced by other organizations such as IDSA is that the ILADS recommendations are not based on the best understanding of the treatment and diagnosis of Lyme and ignore or rationalize away high quality evidence.