Sysiphus Speaks

PLOS One had a recent article The Lack of Side Effects of an Ineffective Treatment Facilitates the Development of a Belief in Its Effectiveness

Not only is there Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Ear, Foot, Hand, Tongue Electo, Laser, Pressure, and there is even fish acupuncture to kill them gently. Anything and everything can be labeled as acupuncture.

Pseudo-medical therapies grounded in fantasy can have no lasting real effects on peoples lives. As the Bard noted, Integrative Medicine is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

After perusing the Center and its offerings, I'll stick to my understanding of Integrative Medicine: When you combine cow pie with apple pie, the cow pie is not improved, the apple pie is worse.

It is safe to say that science blogging from press releases produces garbage with little to do with science.

Take Acupuncture Works To Reduce Menopause Hot Flashes - Meta-analysis from Science 2.0, reporting on a press release about an article that will not be available until February 2015.

In part what separates those who subscribe to the notion of science-based medicine and those who practice pseudo-medicine is explicit criteria for accepting evidence of therapeutic efficacy combined with an understanding of all the logical fallacies to which we are prone.

Zarbee's got a warning letter from the FDA telling it to knock off with the disease claims, which included:

Natural Ivy Leaf extract "helps thin and loosen web mucus coughs"

dark honey (a supplement ingredient) is "clinically proven to calm coughs and sore throats in children"

Last month the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the Palmer College of Chiropractic must make accommodations for a blind student, including

an assistant to interpret X-rays and other medical images. The college had argued that accommodation wasn't feasible, and that vision was a requirement for a degree because reading X-rays is critical for the profession.

There have been other blind chiropractors in the past, starting with C.R. Johnston, the man who made Peekskill famous (I never heard of Peekskill) who graduated from Palmer in 1918.

Raw milk is unpasterized milk, which means it can be chock full of all sorts of infectious organisms, such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157 and Campylobacter. As you may have noticed, the milk production facility of the cow is located quite close to the endpoint of the cow's digestive system. This is not an ideal food production setup unless you are a calf.

As to the flu vaccine Dr. Oz said in an interview Anderson Cooper, that while he was required as a condition of employment to get the H1N1 vaccine his wife and children would not get the vaccine.

Some are not content to do new worthless, poorly designed, pseudo-medical trials. Some need to reformulate the metaphor under which the magic of pseudo-medicine is understood. So we get "A Disturbance Rejection Framework for the Study of Traditional Chinese Medicine."