Alternative Medicine
If I’m going to subsidise your homeopathic treatment, I want you to subsidise my red wine. At least there is some evidence the wine may have health benefits.
Insurance is basically a controlled gamble. I pay my monthly fees and hope one day I get a terrifically chronic disease that makes it all worthwhile. Then all those suckers I’ve been subsidising with my rude good health will get what’s coming.
We all hate paying insurance, so more people should be incensed that a portion of the money goes on… well, incense. Aromatherapy, along with other feel-good, do-nothing therapies. (Actually, compared to homeopathy, aromatherapy’s practically penicillin.)
Continue reading "Yet another whack at those dastardly quacks" »
Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. This week we’re going heavy metal. Silver is starting to acquire a cure-all gloss, as people attribute all sorts of amazing powers to it. It can kill werewolves! And microbes! And de-stink stinky sneakers!
As a disinfectant, it’s not just a Band-aid gimmick; it actually does help treat infections and is being used more often as superbugs get a foothold in our hospitals – although some experts warn that its very effectiveness could eventually just create more resistant strains of bacteria.
So if it’s good embedded in wound dressings, it must be even better if tiny particles of the stuff are suspended in liquid and downed in one, right? Well, hate to make you blue, but I call bullshit.
Continue reading "ICB: Colloidal silver is rolled gold… something" »
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GirlWonder says:
Geoff: Doctors DO tell their patients about diet and exercise. Most people (me included) are too lazy and gluttonous to make the change. Hence the perscription of statins. Read more »
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single hippy girl says:
Shane, ICB on this. I use alternative therapies occasionally and can claim a whole whopping $400 a year on all these services - whoopeee, i’m laughing all the way to the bank you pratt Also, who says that alternatve therapies offered up by the health funds are all new age… Read more »
If your doctor sent you off to try reiki, coffee enemas, or (my personal favourite) vaginal blowing, you should go straight to the registration board.
But what if they’re recommending St John’s Wort, or acupuncture? Where does medicine end and dodgy science begin?
The latest Medical Journal of Australia delves into these quackery-tainted waters with two pieces on whether doctors should be prescribing complementary and alternative ‘medicines’ (CAM).
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braunman says:
Interesting story. At least in your case they’re going to someone who actually knows what they’re talking about regarding the human body. Suppose that’s one way of getting CAM believers to see a trained medial specialist! How do you carry out your version of reflexology/reiki? Do you pretend to do… Read more »
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braunman says:
@Richard, I hate to tell you this, but the daily mail isn’t exactly the most reliable news source. They’re a tabloid like The Sun or (until recently) News of the World. You shouldn’t rely on them for unbiased scientific advise. Read more »
I rattle when I walk in the morning after taking all my complementary medicine supplements.
(Tim Minchin explains his frustration at dealing with believers)
Not to mention that I reek of cat-breath from fish oil pills and of neem pounded into my scalp, and have the complexion of a ginko tree root.
Let’s face it, I’m not all that attractive but by my calculation I have fended off high blood pressure, rapid aging, flaky skin and quite possibly a number of varieties of leprosy.
Continue reading "Cat breath’s not the only side effect of complementary pills" »
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lertalArp says:
Feel more excited with women http://hifrino.ru/ Read more »
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acotrel says:
This documentary proves that homeopathy works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0 Read more »
The controversies that have arisen between complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) and conventional medical practice may come from a difference in their origins.
Conventional medicine is based on evidence, often derived from randomised clinical trials, resulting in detailed knowledge about the likely benefits and side effects. This information can help a patient decide on a treatment recommendation. Moreover, how the medicine works is often known.
CAMs are not supported by the same type of evidence. Their proposed mechanisms of action do not accord with the way modern science believes the body works. “Evidence” is commonly from testimonials or generations of use, with little information that would allow a patient to judge their chance of responding. Although the evidence produced for conventional medicine can create uncertainty, CAMs are often promoted without that uncertainty.
Continue reading "Complementary cancer therapies: Not an alternative" »
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Paul says:
Richard wrote: ” I take objection to being told that I’m too dumb to distinguish between what has helped me and what hasn’t.” The problem is we are all too dumb to distinguish between what has helped us and what hasn’t. It’s all too easy to assume that an improvement… Read more »
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braunman says:
@Terry, Funny you should mention Heroin. In the past heroin and other poppy derivitives (opium ect) actually were used in medicine. Needless to say there’s several very good reasons they arent anymore… Read more »
Welcome to a new regular Punch piece – I Call Bullshit!
(We’ve used this one before, but it really is supremely funny)
It’ll be dedicated to all the quackery, bullshenanigans and bogus science out there, everywhere.
Today’s was going to be all about psychics. Then I saw this piece in The Australian about a homeopathy clinic offering remedies for radiation sickness. They thoughtfully spruiked their wares at a time when so many people in Japan are scared out of their wits as the radiation threat worsens.
Continue reading "ICB: Using homeopathy for radiation poisoning" »
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braunman says:
Richard, I would like to point out that in that last message you’re basically saying “I don’t need facts, all I need is my opinion!” I don’t normally like to put words in peoples’ mouths but…really, that sums up your entire post. Read more »
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acotrel says:
@Faz The other day someone on this forum picked up the line thast ‘Rachel Carson was a misanthrop’. They said that her campaign to ban DDT led to millions of deaths due to malaria. They neglected to mention that every insect species which has been almost killed off by pesticides… Read more »
The world is full of quacks. Legislation won’t work. Time for MyQuack.
Sorry, scrap that, bad connotations.
Time for a one-stop easy-access online information source where you can click on the name of the healer you’re visiting and see where they sit on a bullshit-barometer. This week the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission lawyers allege a man has claimed he can cure cancer with diet and exercise. The court has heard he claimed this treatment was more effective than surgery, chemotherapy and pharmaceutical drugs.
Continue reading "Crack down on quacks and make them pay the bill" »
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St. Michael says:
I don’t need to or want to look up Google. The burden of proof is on you. Cite some sources or verifiable studies ... for the third time. Third strike, dear. Your Latin also gets a D minus. “Ad hominem” is shorthand for “argumentum ad hominem”, which is an attempt… Read more »
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Michelle says:
St Michael. OK, I admit it, you’re right: my self-esteem is wrapped up in free-thinking. Call it a crime, if that’s what it is from your padded cell of “controlled studies is all there is, la la la I can’t hear anything else”. Ad hominem = appealing to personal considerations… Read more »
It’s World Homeopathy Awareness Week, and homeopaths around the world are celebrating their craft and reflect on the 255th birthday of their creator, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann.
Homeopathy was invented 200 years ago by the German physician, and is based on a ‘like-treats-like’ concept: that the symptoms of an illness can be treated by minute quantities of the same substance that caused it.
This is known as the ‘Law of Similars’ and means that a homeopathic medicine for insomnia may include miniscule amounts of coffee or a homeopathic medicine for hay fever may contain tiny traces of grasses, pollens or animal hair.
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Dr Lisa Milne says:
Indeed Nancy, its positively and consistently evident that at best its does nothing (being water) but that at worst it leads to avoidable deaths (such as that of Penelope Dingle) when the condition is real and life threatening. Read more »
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Dr. Nancy Malik says:
Evidence of homeopathy is undeniably positive and consistent. It’s a human evidence of experience, gathered from a real-world observation in a real-world setting (not in an ideal artificial laboratory) giving real-world solutions. Read more »
The world - largely thanks to the internet - is getting overloaded with more pseudoscience, psychobabble and outright bullsh*t than ever before, and we need a groundswell of logical thinking to fight it.
Skeptics used to come under fire because people saw skepticism as inherently negative.
(It’s hard to work out whether that was because the critics just didn’t know the difference between cynicism and skepticism, or were just fundamentally ignorant of the philosophy of science.)
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Eran Segev says:
@Chemist: So climatologists and other scientists are part of the conspiracy to hide the truth from the public in order to save their jobs. How lucky we are to have the brave geologists, who are committed to science and won’t budge. Oh, wait! Perhaps it’s geologists who are simply out… Read more »
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chemist says:
re: Eran. Geologists are sceptics because they think in terms of billions of years. They know that climate change is constant and often extreme. Geologists are also aware that their is absolutely no correlation between climate and atmospheric composition over the past 600 million years. In the past it has… Read more »
To medicate or not to medicate, that is the question.
British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb tackle the traditional vs alternative medicine debate.
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Lee says:
d - please don’t use homeopathy and “health care” together…... it is the biggest crock though! Read more »
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d says:
rofl lyn. “valuable additions”? do the words snake oil salesman mean anything to you? homeopathy is the biggest crock in the health care world. giving people water and telling them it can cure them? get a brain Read more »
Marketing gurus around Australia have embarked on a whole new strategy. No more two-for-the-price-of-one, or 20-per-cent-extra-free deals. Now it’s all about giving the people less of what they want. Genius.
First they shrank chocolate bars. Now they’re cutting the amount of alcohol in booze – not in the designated driver-oriented “lite” products, but in your everyday lager.
Detergents come in ever smaller containers. It’s concentrated, but what’s the bet most people use the same amount?
But the worst case – particularly in light of swine flu – is cold and flu medicine.
Continue reading "Bless you if you have a cold, the chemist won’t help you" »
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Julia Wallace says:
Tory, I couldn’t agree more about homeopathy. An interesting read is “Bad Medicine” by Dr Ben Goldacre, in which he discusses the dubious practices employed by big pharma, and the whole ‘alternative’ medicine industry. And to those posters who discussed the use of pseudoephedrine for a cold, my reading of… Read more »
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Chris says:
Actually. Sorry. In response to the above post… I think it’s dispicable that chemists could even stock homeopathic products. They do this only to make money because as previously posted homeopathy is all about drinking WATER. There is no active ingredient in homeopathy and thus there is no effect beyond… Read more »
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