Sysiphus Speaks

Up north in British Columbia an acupuncture clinic was closed because of poor "infection prevention and control standards" and poses a health hazard to clients.

Flawed acupuncture studies are apparently inexhaustible with Asia the worlds primary exporter. So often major flaw in the study in question is no placebo. It flabbers my gaster than anyone in the year 2014 would be so clueless as to publish an acupuncture trail without sham therapy.

Yet another class action lawsuit has been filed by plaintiffs alleging they were scammed by a dietary supplement. In this case the supplement is pharmaceutical giant Bayer's One A Day vitamins.

I have mixed feelings about homeopaths (MD's at that), going to West Africa to treat ebola patients with arsenic and snake venom. Homeopathy, referred to as a "controversial technique" is in fact fantastical nonsense that cannot and does not have any efficacy against any illness. Still I have to have a grudging admiration for their trip, even if it is based on the most profound of delusions. I sure hope they do not catch ebola and then rely on their own nostrums for treatment.

Well not really acupuncture, at last not as the ancient Chinese did it. I do not think they had electricity to apply to the needles. But this was an interesting study, Expectancy in Real and Sham Electroacupuncture: Does Believing Make It So?

Evidently promoted by their Director of Player Health and Performance, Cupping is a form of pseudo-scientific nonsense that is being used by the Blazers

Suggesting that vaccines are being distributed in order to sterilize populations is part of what allowed a resurgence of polio. And now they are doing it with the tetanus vaccine.

Our new Ms. America, D.C., has parlayed her "INSTANT CELEBRITY STATUS!" into a gig as spokesperson for the Brain Injury Association of America. According to the BIAA,

How do you credential someone in a field that is based in pseudo-medicine, divorced from reality, with a panoply of imagery diseases treated with equally imaginary therapies? Like natruopathy?

It is also ironic that while the ABIM is striving to improve care with the initiative, many organizations are institutionalizing pseudo-medical therapies in Integrative Medicine Departments that meet none of the Choosing Wisely criteria. What SBM givith, pseudo-medicine taketh away.

Like TCPM, India wasting huge sums of money, $16 million, trying to find scientific legitimacy with their own version of tooth fairy science, “ayurgenomics”

honey is still touted as a treatment for cough and you do not want to give honey to children because of the risk of botulism. So hows about agave nectar ? So in an interesting study, Placebo Effect in the Treatment of Acute Cough in Infants and Toddlers they compared agave nectar, placebo and no intervention in children with cough.

A few nights ago I ran across "Love Crunch Premium Organic Granola" at (surprise!) Whole Foods. Those of you who read my post, "What Whole Foods Doesn't Tell You," over on the SBM blog, will have caught me in a broken promise here. In the post, I deplored a magazine, "What Doctors Don't Tell You," found in the check-out aisle. The magazine was chock-full of "alternative" health garbage, including downright dangerous advice on cancer treatment. I swore, right there in front of everybody, that I would not darken the door of Whole Foods again as long as they continued to promote such nonsense.

Pseudo-medical providers ignore complications and, as the chiropractic response to the risk of stroke after neck manipulation demonstrates, work hard at denying that complications can occur. In real medicine we always try and side with patient safety. Not chiropractors.

It turns out that the phrase 'serious methodological problems' is a remarkable understatement as the paper on green coffee beans and weight loss was retracted this week. Why?