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SkeptVet’s Acupuncture Adventure- Part 4: Spinal Cord Injury

Introduction This lecture had surprisingly little information about acupuncture itself. It began with a review of the pathophysiology of spinal cord injury and the typical steps for evaluating and stabilizing patients presenting with acute spinal cord injury. Most of the … Continue reading

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Acupuncture Works! (Just as Well as Fake Acupuncture Anyway)

The evidence has been accumulating for some time that acupuncture is an elaborate and very potent placebo that can effectively make subjective symptoms better without actually influencing the underlying disease. I have written about a number of studies illustrating this … Continue reading

Posted in Acupuncture | 3 Comments

American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association (AHVMA) & its Foundation (AHVMF)

I recently received a registration packet for the 2014 Annual Conference of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association. This seemed a good reminder to pull together some of the information and observations concerning organized alternative veterinary medicine I have posted … Continue reading

Posted in Topic-Based Summaries | 13 Comments

Discussion of Homeopathy Continues in the AVMA

Over the last few months, I have followed the progress of a resolution introduced to the American Veterinary Medical Association House of Delegates identifying homeopathy as an ineffective therapy incompatible with evidence-based medicine. The story can be traced through several … Continue reading

Posted in Homeopathy | 8 Comments

What’s Wrong with Integrative Veterinary Medicine?

The terminology associated with unconventional therapies has shifted a bit over the last 40 or so years. Initially, such therapies were often described as “alternative.” This fit well with the still widespread philosophical position that new or different ways of … Continue reading

Posted in General | 32 Comments

Veterinary Acupuncture

What is it? Because of the wide variety of theories, approaches, and specific practices acupuncturists use, it is difficult to find agreement as to what exactly acupuncture is. At its core, acupuncture is the practice of inserting needles into the … Continue reading

Posted in Acupuncture | 11 Comments

Medical Miracles: Should We Believe?

Any time there is discussion of alternative medicine, of treatments that haven’t passed the test of rigorous scientific investigation (or even been tested at all), there are miracle stories. Testimonials, anecdotes, whatever you call them, they are tales of amazing … Continue reading

Posted in General | 10 Comments

Veterinary Orthopedic Manipulation (VOM)-A Familiar Tale of Quackery

The hallmark of classic medical quackery is the lone genius proclaiming the discovery of a radical new approach to healing that is simple, perfectly effective, and perfectly safe. This magical new therapy, described in impressive scientific terminology invented from scratch … Continue reading

Posted in Chiropractic, General, Law, Regulation, and Politics | 18 Comments

Veterinary Arthritis Treatments

Over the couple of years of producing this blog, I have written about many different subjects. Some have come up repeatedly, and because they represent common and important issues, I thought it might be useful to collect related posts I’ve … Continue reading

Posted in Topic-Based Summaries | 56 Comments

Chiropractic: The More We Look, the Less We Find

Edzard Ernst recently commented on two Cochrane reviews involving chiropractic, which drew my attention to these reviews. I have to admit finding the results a little surprising. In general, the total body of evidence fails to support most of the … Continue reading

Posted in Chiropractic | 30 Comments