Category Archives: General

My first contribution to the Swift blog at the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is up today. Alternative Medicine & Placebo Effects: In Pets? Placebo effects, of course, operate for all medical therapies, effective or ineffective, conventional or alternative. But … Continue reading →

I’ve written about so-called “integrative medicine” in the past, and my conclusion was that it is largely a Trojan horse intended to exempt certain alternative therapies from rigorous scientific scrutiny and gain mainstream acceptance without appropriate evidence of safety and … Continue reading →

I am often asked by clients if there is a blood test that can tell if their apparently healthy pet has cancer. Obviously, “cancer” is a scary word, and many of the various diseases given that label are difficult to … Continue reading →

An interesting article appeared recently in a widely-read veterinary journal that discusses so-called “integrative medicine” in veterinary cancer care in terms of evidence-based medicine (EBM). This article raises a number of interesting questions and concerns. Raditic, DM. Bartges, JW. Evidence-based … Continue reading →

By far the most common response to those posts I write questioning the claims for medical therapies advertised on the internet is a flood of testimonials from people who believe the scientific evidence is wrong or irrelevant because the product … Continue reading →

A recent editorial from Trends in Molecular Medicine does an excellent job explaining why clinical trials testing the effects of highly implausible therapies, like homeopathy and energy medicine, are not an example of evidence-based medicine but of science tricked into … Continue reading →

A number of interesting and important research studies have been published in the last 5 years on the subject of the risks and benefits of neutering in dogs, and these have provided important information to help guide veterinarians and owners … Continue reading →

I write regularly about the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association (AHVMA) and its fundraising arm the American Holistic Veterinary Medicine Foundation (AHVMF). These organizations are very much the tip of the spear for pseudoscience in veterinary medicine. Unfortunately, despite peddling … Continue reading →

Though I’m a little late, I’m a forgiving sort, so I won’t be mad at myself for forgetting my blogiversary. June 4 marked five years of the SkeptVet Blog! The project has grown in so many ways. In the early … Continue reading →

Earlier this year, I reviewed a research study claiming that dogs orient themselves to fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field when defecating. I was asked to re-post the review on Publons, a site which publishes reviews of journal articles. The … Continue reading →