Sysiphus Speaks

Not everyone thinks that pseudo-medicines would be at best in the way and at worst dangerous to the function of reality based medicine. For example take The Roles of Acupuncture and Other Components of Integrative Medicine in Cataclysmic Natural Disasters and Military Conflicts.

In China a real doctor has bet a practitioner of TCPM that he (the TCPM) cannot determine if a woman is pregnant 80% of the time by the TCPM diagnostic practice of feeling the pulse. The women will evidently be behind a curtain so the TCPM will have no other clues as to the state of the female. A simple binary result, pregnant or not, by feeling the pulse and only feeling the pulse. Like the Rosa test, it will be simple and elegant. At stake is RMB 100,000.

And so it boggles my mind that 10—39 percent—of U.S. adults are “concerned” that there will be a large outbreak here . More than a quarter—26 percent—are concerned that they or someone in their immediate family may get sick with Ebola this year.

I was struck by the headline "NIH director: Ebola vaccine could be ready by now if not for budget austerity." What is needed is the money spent on the NCCAM

Naturopaths have turned these uncertainties about dietary supplements into a marketing strategy for their practices. Since they eschew evidence-based medicine, dietary supplements are a staple of their "natural" armamentarium and their supposed expertise in supplements is advertised to the public.

Acupuncture therapy for fever induced by viral upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) in military medical service: a case series resulted in a snort of derision.

When it comes to the literature on TCPM it is likely that a given paper will have a positive result and be poorly done. Reader beware.

Chiropractic & Manual Therapies, an open-access chiropractic journal, has a new article out on chiropractors' attitudes toward drug prescription privileges. It is not itself a survey, but a narrative review of 7 surveys of chiropractors in Europe, Australia, North America and Mexico. As with chiropractic in general, opinions are all over the board.

No one is likely to out do the Cleveland Clinic in the breadth and, well, not depth, of embracing pseudo-medicines. From herbal medicine clinics to functional medicine they offer it all.

There is a letter to Acupuncture in Medicine entitled Pneumothorax complication of deep dry needling demonstration. Pneumothorax, popping a lung, is a rare but well described complication of acupuncture. I almost feel sorry for the practitioner as in the accompanying video he keeps emphasizing the care that must be done in order to avoid just that complication. Then you see the needle abruptly goes really deep. Pop. Procedures, even useless procedures, have complications. It happens. But watch the video for the most god-awful adherence to infection control you could ever want to see.

The Governor of Oregon was an ER doctor before he went into politics. Last month he declared October "Oregon Chiropractic Health and Wellness Month."

The Senate has once again passed, by unanimous consent, Senate Resolution 420 designating the week of October 6 through October 12, 2014, as "Naturopathic Medicine Week" to recognize the value of naturopathic medicine in providing safe, effective, and affordable health care.

There Is No “Alternative Medicine” in the Atlantic this month. It is a discussion of chelation for coronary artery disease, the TACT study, discussed at length over at Science-Based Medicine. In was the phrase "self-appointed medical watchdogs" that caught my eye.

Like much of my understanding of the world, I rely on what the preponderance of the ID literature suggests about a given treatment. The rest of medicine? I have trust the expertise of others. There are now two further problems with literature.

The potential for morbidity and mortality from asthma was one of the reasons I was surprised that the study Active Albuterol or Placebo, Sham Acupuncture, or No Intervention in Asthma was approved by an IRB. Treating a potentially serious disease with three kinds of placebo is a little dangerous.