A Book from the SkeptVet
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Author Archives: skeptvet
Does the Truth Matter?
One of the most common responses I get when I point out the lack of evidence for particular CAM therapies is, “So what? If it doesn’t do any harm and if people feel better, even just because of a placebo … Continue reading
Posted in General
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Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
There are many excellent books out there on skepticism generally, on the specific mistakes we tend to make in our judgments that lead us to believe what isn’t true, and on the more specific questions of CAM and evidence-based health … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
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Warning Signs of Quackery Ahead
Though it’s certainly not an original observation, I’ve begun to see some repeating patterns of behavior associated with unreliable and unscientific medical claims, and I think it might be useful to review some possible warning signs that one is dealing … Continue reading
Posted in General
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Probiotics for Herpesvirus Rhinitis
I’ve written before on the subject of probiotics, bacteria or yeast fed to people or animals with the intent of affecting health in some way. I consider them to be in a bit of a gray zone between mainstream medicine … Continue reading
Posted in Herbs and Supplements
12 Comments
Balancing Doctor Expertise and Patient Autonomy
My recent brush with the “healthcare choice” concept, as well as a podcast interview I listened to with Dr. Paul Offit on Point of Inquiry put me in mind of an interesting and challenging puzzle in the philosophy of medical … Continue reading
Posted in General
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More Hypocritical Nonsense about “Healthcare Choice”
Readers of this blog will be familiar with Dr. Shawn Messonier and his style of promoting alternative veterinary medicine by lying about scientific medicine and veterinarians who practice it (e.g. Here, Here, and Here). The latest example of this behavior … Continue reading
Posted in General, Law, Regulation, and Politics
14 Comments
Risks of Herbs and Supplements Finally Getting Some Attention
Some of the most popular forms of alternative medicine are the myriad herbs and “dietary supplements” (a faux category created by the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education [DSHEA] act to allow marketing of unproven drugs without regulatory oversight). These … Continue reading
Posted in Herbs and Supplements
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Use of herbals associated with lower quality of life in asthma patients
Proponents of CAM often claim that one major advantage to their methods is the absence of side effects seen with conventional medical treatments. This makes little sense since there is no “free lunch” in physiology, and an intervention that affects … Continue reading
Posted in Herbs and Supplements
8 Comments
We can’t prove it, but….Faith-based medicine and special pleading
CAM proponents often engage in the rhetorical fallacy known as special pleading. Wikipedia’s definition of this is adequate: “a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need … Continue reading
Posted in General
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Oximunol–The latest in marketing masquerading as science.
A couple of “news” articles, which were essentially truncated but often verbatim reprints of a company press release, appeared today about a clinical trial looking at a mysterious new veterinary product with grand but vague claims. Naturally, this caught my … Continue reading
Posted in Herbs and Supplements
7 Comments