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Some people are deeply moved by the idea that there is a more holistic way of viewing human health, that there is a warm, friendly alternative to cold, institutionalized medicine as I learned while conducting interviews for a new "e-monograph" about unconventional medical practices.

But just because an idea is pretty doesn't mean it's true. That's a lesson smart children learn early on, perhaps upon discovering that there's no Santa Claus or upon realizing that the neighbor kids were lying when they said they had some wonderful magic beans.

We must be suspicious, then, of claims that are pretty but unscientific even ones that seem intuitively...

Homeopathy is a system of so-called energy medicine developed by German physician Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). Over the years proponents of homeopathy have put forward various theories concerning homeopathy's alleged ability to cure diverse maladies, but there is little agreement, even among these proponents, as to how homeopathic products might work.

To question homeopathy is, by association, to question an impressive wealth of well-documented personal experiences attesting to its alleged effectiveness. While feelings and personal experience can sometimes lead one to the truth of a matter, the old maxim that our senses often deceive us is acknowledged and allowed for not only in biomedical research but in all fields of sensible inquiry.

The...

Below is the text of a letter sent to officials at London's UnHerd Club in anticipation of an appearance there on July 18 of anti-science, anti-technology, anti-innovation activist Vandana Shiva. The signatories of the letter, of whom I am one, wished to make them aware of Shiva's longstanding perfidy and mendacity and the damage she has wrought, especially to the world's poorest and most vulnerable. In addition to the link to my ACSH.org article cited in the letter, I have also written about Vandana Shiva elsewhere, including here

 

Letter regarding Dr Vandana Shiva's anti-scientific and unethical stances

Date...

There are signs of a mid-summer surge in COVID-19 cases, particularly in the South and West, that have some experts concerned. But even the very risk-averse expect it to be small relative to past years.

The bigger issue is whether we are letting down our defenses against other viruses as the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic fades from the headlines? Although the more than 1.1 million deaths and hundreds of thousands of cases of Americans with...

A 67-year-old man with head and neck cancer who received radiation treatment two weeks earlier was admitted to a palliative care center for treatment of severe pain caused by a massive fungal infection in and around his throat. At the time of his admission, his pain had been treated for one week (with partial success) with a 50 μg/hr fentanyl patch. Shortly after admission, he was given itraconazole, an antifungal drug, to treat the infection. The next day signs of opioid toxicity abruptly appeared. The hospital staff replaced the fentanyl with morphine, the opioid toxicity abated, and the patient was symptom-free two days later. He was later released with a half-dose (25 μg/hr) fentanyl patch, which satisfactorily relieved his pain without causing opioid overdose-like symptoms.

...

Christmas is around the corner, and that means a bunch of bad gifts are heading your way. Some will be merely bad, like a calendar with a different cat hairball for every month. But even though you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who actually wants a wall calendar, let alone one with hairballs, at least has the year on it, so it is pretty much impossible that it sitting around for decades and then regifted. No, some misguided soul spent actually spent money to purchase it. But other gifts are clearly regifted. Go ahead and try to convince me that you didn't regift a Chia Head – a strong contender for the title of "Worst Gift Ever" – back whenever those monstrosities first came out in 1981. 

Yet, the Chia Head does have some redeeming qualities. At least when you throw the damn...

Christmas is around the corner, and that means a bunch of bad gifts are heading your way. Some will be merely bad, like a calendar with a different cat hairball for every month. But even though you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who actually wants a wall calendar, let alone one with hairballs, at least has the year on it, so it is unlikely that it was regifted – some misguided soul spent the time and money to purchase it. Other gifts are clearly regifted. Go ahead and try to convince me that you didn't regift a Chia Head back whenever those monstrosities first came out. 

Can't get much worse than this, right?

 

Wrong

...

If you're ever in the mood for some yuks, take a casual stroll up and down the aisles in a CVS pharmacy and see if you can't find a bunch of stuff that shouldn't be sold there (maybe even anywhere). It's not that hard. I recently took that stroll. Here are three doozies that take insanity to a new level. 

 

1. Non-Homeopathic-Homeopathic Arnica

It's one thing when people choose to pee away money on homeopathic nonsense, but as consumers, they have rights, too! If I'm from Neptune an apostle of homeopathy, I am well within my rights to demand that the bottle I'm purchasing contain absolutely nothing except water. No therapeutic drugs or chemicals will be tolerated. Placebo only!

So, imagine my surprise when I saw a strange sight – ...

By Leigh Turner, University of Minnesota

Given the death, suffering, social disruption and economic devastation caused by COVID-19, there is an urgent need to quickly develop therapies to treat this disease and prevent the spread of the virus.

But the Food and Drug Administration, charged with the task of evaluating and deciding whether to approve new drugs and other products,...

China is catching up with the rest of the advanced world economically and technologically. Vast infrastructure projects – from high speed rail to 5G – have led many to wonder if China will soon surpass the United States as the global leader in technology. The question was brought into particular focus in the arena of biotechnology when, in late 2018, scientist He Jiankui announced that he had gene-edited two human babies.

Taken together, is this evidence that Chinese technology is on a trajectory to outpace the United States? Or are European competitors the real threat to American technological supremacy? The answer to these questions, at least for the next decade if not longer, is, “Not quite yet, but it depends on the field.”

Though the U.S. will remain dominant and...