Bastions of quackademic medicine: Georgetown University « Science-Based Medicine

Dr David Gorski explains why "Caring for the whole person" is a crock of shit. There is a reason Reiki and Therapeutic Touch are not used to stop internal bleeding or heal a broken arm.  There is a reason that anecdotes lacking any basis in science are considered systematically misleading.  There is a reason that the people who die of untreated cancer are not around to talk about how the quack's treatment doesn't work.

We frequently discuss a disturbing phenomenon known as quackademic medicine. Basically, quackademic medicine is a phenomenon that has taken hold over the last two decades in medical academia in which once ostensibly science-based medical schools and academic medical centers embrace quackery. This embrace was once called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) but among quackademics the preferred term is now “integrative medicine.” Of course, when looked at objectively, integrative medicine is far more a brand than a specialty. Specifically, it’s a combination of rebranding some science-based modalities, such as nutrition and exercise, as somehow being “alternative” or “integrative” with the integration of outright quackery, such as reiki and “energy healing,” acupuncture, and naturopathy, into conventional medicine. As my good bud and fellow Science-Based Medicine (SBM) blogger Mark Crislip put it, mixing cow pie with apple pie does not make the cow pie better, but we seem to be “integrating” the cow pie of quackery with the apple pie of science-based medicine thinking that somehow it will improve the smell, taste, and texture of the cow pie.

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Yes, Georgetown is telling its medical students, forget all that boring old reductionist “Western” science you’ve learned all these years. Open your mind to the sympathetic magic that is homeopathy. Never mind that it has no basis in science and its precepts violate multiple well-established laws of physics and chemistry. Personally, I don’t mind a medical school teaching homeopathy, but only so that doctors know what it is and how utterly pseudoscientific it is. (Most doctors still think it’s just herbal medicine.) However, clearly that’s not what Georgetown is doing. How a pharmacologist can teach homeopathy as anything but as an example of the most abject pseudoscience is beyond me, but that’s what Amri sure appears to be doing, her claim that “we are teaching them [medical students] how to evaluate the science of the therapy, critically analyze it and learn about these medical systems in the most open-minded way” notwithstanding. She seems to be all about the open-mindedness and not so much about critical thinking, similar to the entire Georgetown CAM curriculum.

Bastions of quackademic medicine: Georgetown University « Science-Based Medicine

VacciShield: Pixie dust for an imaginary threat « Science-Based Medicine

,,,Instead I’d like to focus on another part of the sCAM spectrum. Here lies a form of sCAM that, in some ways, is even more difficult for me to comprehend. These are products invented, marketed, and sold solely for the treatment or prevention of fictitious diseases or problems that exist only in the realm of fantasy.

A mother-naturopath by the name of Catherine Clinton has identified a little known condition that has launched her career as a producer and seller of one of the newest health-maintaining elixirs. At $27.99 USD for 1.36 ounces, she’s probably doing all right. It’s not a condition, exactly, that her elixir is aimed at. It’s more of a, well, I guess you can call it a state of unsupported peri-vaccination health, or something. In her own words, VacciShield was designed to “fill a gap that we saw in the vaccination process”. To be a little more specific, ND Clinton explains on her company’s website:

I became concerned about vaccinating my son and wanted another option to support him during vaccinations. I looked to the research to see if there was something I could do nutritionally to support health during this vulnerable time. So we created VacciShield to fill a gap that we saw in the vaccination process. VacciShield is designed for infants and kids to help support healthy brain, immune, gastrointestinal and detoxification function during vaccination.

The gap in the vaccination process she refers to is clearly something she found missing from her child’s routine pediatric care. A gap she has identified that, if not filled, places children at risk. At risk from what is not made clear anywhere on the company’s website. But since VacciShield is intended to support healthy brain, immune, gastrointestinal, and detoxifying function, I’m assuming she believes these body systems are at some sort of risk from vaccinations. Actually, it’s pretty clear what she’s referring to by her albeit vague terminology. And the name VacciShield is certainly not ambiguous. It is meant to shield children from the potentially damaging effects of vaccines, while still presumably allowing the benefits of the vaccines to slip through.

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Based on the ingredients she has chosen to include in this product, and the references she cites in support of them, it seems that ND Clinton’s concerns about vaccinating her son are fueled by just about every vaccine myth out there, including Wakefield’s MMR-induced leaky gut-autism myth, the too-many too-soon gambit, the glutathione-deficiency vaccine-induced autism hypothesis, the thimerosal-induced neurotoxicity myth, the intestinal flora dysregulation and autism hypothesis, and probably others all thrown into the mix.


VacciShield: Pixie dust for an imaginary threat « Science-Based Medicine

Swiss Man Takes Pill Of 'Dead Priest Hair' To Treat Bell's Palsy, Gets Lead Poisoning Instead

A man in Switzerland was discovered to have suffered from lead poisoning after ingesting pills that he thought contained the hair of a dead Bhutanese priest. The man, originally from the country of Bhutan -- whose state religion is Vajrayana Buddhism -- thought the alternative medicine would treat his Bell’s palsy.

According to a case report published in F1000 Research in 2011, the Swiss man was admitted to the emergency room in Geneva with severe abdominal pain. He had experienced bouts of nausea and vomiting for five days. Doctors performed all the routine tests, but couldn’t identify what the problem was. According to Live Science, when the patient’s symptoms didn’t let up after a few days, doctors asked him if he was taking any traditional remedies. That’s when the man confessed to injesting unmarked pellets every day for three to four months in an effort to treat his Bell’s palsy.

Swiss Man Takes Pill Of 'Dead Priest Hair' To Treat Bell's Palsy, Gets Lead Poisoning Instead