Author Archives: skeptvet

It is a well-known, indisputable, and nearly universally ignored fact that anecdotes in medicine are unreliable when trying to decide which therapies work and which don’t. The experiences of individual patients don’t even reliably tell us what worked or didn’t … Continue reading →

A client recently asked for my opinion about the value of some over-the-counter eye drops purported to treat cataracts in dogs and cats. Not having read much about this product, I did a little research. What Is It? There are … Continue reading →

The therapies I write about range widely from the likely beneficial, to the plausible but mostly untested and over-marketed, to the implausible and even completely ridiculous. The subject of this post is in the last category, and it is a … Continue reading →

A reader recently asked me to look into a manipulative technique marketed for both humans and veterinary patients, Bowen Technique. This turned out to be a bit easier than I expected as there are already a couple of excellent evidence-based … Continue reading →

The subject I focus on most often when discussing the value of CAM therapies is whether or not they are safe and effective. That is, do they generate a measurable improvement in objective measures of illness with acceptable side effects? … Continue reading →

This presentation, originally given as a continuing education talk at Kansas State University, discusses the evaluation of alternative medicine, particularly veterinary alternative practices, from a science-based perspective. It is divided into three parts, and these are available both as the … Continue reading →

I’ve written before about the unethical and misleading negative advertising that so often characterizes the promotion of alternative veterinary medicine. But I ran across another example that set my teeth on edge and illustrated a particular problem I have with … Continue reading →

The media loves to run cute human interest pieces on alternative medicine for animals. Reporters are seldom interested in the complexities or nuance of the evidence, but they love the warm, fuzzy, and slightly humorous image of alternative medicine applied … Continue reading →