Shock! Horror! Lord Winston attacks Homeopathy in spite of knowing homeopaths

Eye-searing homeopathy webshite Homeopathy Heals Me published this bit of frothing dumbfuck on 7th December 2014. I was suffering from a surfeit of parties at the time, so it got squirreled away for debollocksing at a later date. Today seems like a good day for it. It’s quite short, yet manages to cram a huge amount of shrill hysteria into a few words...

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The UK General Chiropractic Council: fit for purpose? | Edzard Ernst

The UK Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) tries to promote the health, safety and wellbeing of patients, service users and the public by raising standards of regulation and voluntary registration of people working in health and care. They are an independent body, accountable to the UK Parliament.

In July 2014, the PSA audited all 75 of the cases that the General Chiropractic Council (GCC) had closed at the initial stages of its fitness to practise (FTP) process during the 12 month period from 1 June 2013 to 30 May 2014. The final verdict of the PSA’s audit seems devastating. Here is a short excerpt from the conclusions of its report..

Read on: The UK General Chiropractic Council: fit for purpose?

Pompous Twerp Alert: Alan Hunter just found the Contact form

It took him longer than I thought, but allergy quack and spam ranter Alan Hunter finally found this site and has decided to bluster at me. I’m tired and have important things to do tomorrow, so this will be short and sweet, but heartfelt. For a summary of previous episodes, please read the posts here and on WWDDTYDTY. Just don’t do it with your mouth full, as I accept no responsibility for what may become of your keyboard.

From: Alan Hunter
Subject: Your inaccurate assessment of my findings
Message Body: Dear Anonymous Anarchic-teapot 

Attacking the person instead of the argument. +1 WTF point.

I would like you to read this article, from Positive Health, which shows the medical literature I have drawn my conclusions from. 

Are you sitting comfortably, dear reader? Then let us abord the first item in this 82-point Gish Gallop: … Continue reading →

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Black seed oil: A Cure For All Disease Except Stupid

Every now and then I come across a quack webshite so shrill in its insistence that their magical mystery cure, and that alone, can save your life that the only polite word to describe it is “evil”. This is such a site: A Cure for All Disease Except Death. You will notice that it is hosted by Blogger. While Google, the owner, has chronic hypogiveafuckaemia about the legality of content published via its service – unless you have a court injunction – it nevertheless has a weakness. When you go to a blog hosted by Blogger, you will be automatically redirected to a copy of it in a domain that depends on the country you’re in. In other words, if you’re in the UK you will be directed to a co.uk domain, which means that the site is technically situated in the UK. It is illegal to claim to cure … Continue reading →

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Acupuncture: new meta-analysis suggests it is effective beyond placebo | Edzard Ernst

The discussion whether acupuncture is more than a placebo is as long as it is heated. Crucially, it is also quite tedious, tiresome and unproductive, not least because no resolution seems to be in sight. Whenever researchers develop an apparently credible placebo and the results of clinical trials are not what acupuncturists had hoped for, the therapists claim that the placebo is, after all, not inert and the negative findings must be due to the fact that both placebo and real acupuncture are effective...

Read on: Acupuncture: new meta-analysis suggests it is effective beyond placebo

To the “Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice,” vaccine requirements are exactly like the Holocaust

UPDATE (2/23/15, 11pm): It gets worse. The woman comparing her decision to not vaccinate to the Holocaust was a pre-med student at California State University, San Bernadino, according to her Facebook page. That’s right. She wants to be a physician. God help us if she gets into med school.

Have you ever been to a Holocaust museum? I was in grade school when I went to one in my hometown. I was an adult when I went to the one in Washington, DC. In both cases, my mind couldn’t grasp the enormity of what happened in Europe under the Nazi regime. People of different […]

Read more at: To the “Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice,” vaccine requirements are exactly like the Holocaust by Reuben

Traditional Chinese Medicine = a commercially driven world in an evidence-free environment of make-belief | Edzard Ernst

Chinese proprietary herbal medicines (CPHMs) are a well-established and a hugely profitable part of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with a long history in China and elsewhere; they are used for all sorts of conditions, not least for the treatment of common cold. Many CPHMs have been listed in the ‘China national essential drug list’ (CNEDL), the official reference published by the Chinese Ministry of Health. One would hope that such a document to be based on reliable evidence – but is it?

The aim of a recent review was to provide an assessment on the potential benefits and harms of CPHMs for common cold listed in the CNEDL...

Read on: Traditional Chinese Medicine = a commercially driven world in an evidence-free environment of make-belief

Sharyl Attkisson: The 2015 U.S. Measles Outbreak

It’s nearly 2 am here and I should be abed, but this is important. I’ll make it a quickie. 

There is a lot of stealth fuckwittery being spouted by the antivax brigade. As an example, take self-styled investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson. She recently shat out a rant on the ongoing measles outbreak in California, a hotbed of organic quinoa detox fiends of ever there was one. Unlike the more insane antivaxers, though, she is prepared to admit that measles isn’t a laughing matter. However, she is just as prepared to massage the figures and even tell complete porkies if it suits her position. Let’s pick them out:

But CDC says one in four will become so sick, they have to be hospitalized. In the California outbreak, CDC reports a slightly lower hospitalization rate of 20%. 

Dishonest. The sample consisted of 84 patients at that time. That’s tiny. Nobody would claim … Continue reading →

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Forgotten In Time: The Ancient Solfeggio Frequencies

I’ve had this one saved up for a while and it doesn’t seem to want to go away, so ladies and gentlemen (and others), please be upstanding for the outstanding fuckwittery that is Forgotten In Time: The Ancient Solfeggio Frequencies! In case you don’t speak Music, this absolute Godsend of a webshite owned by noted loon Henrik Palmgren claims it’s possible to Cure By Choons via the various modes used in Gregorian church music. Yes, it’s Lost Ancient Secret Knowledge Rediscovered by Our Founder time! Here we go:

What Are The Ancient Solfeggio Frequencies?
These original sound frequencies were apparently used in Ancient Gregorian Chants, such as the great hymn to St. John the Baptist, along with others that church authorities say were lost centuries ago.

The chants were originally handed down orally from generation to generation. Of course some had been lost by the time monks finally started … Continue reading →

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Encyclopedia of American Loons: #1294: Judith Acosta

Judith Acosta is, at least according to her biography at Huffington Post, “a licensed psychotherapist, classical homeopath, and crisis counselor in private practice.” She advocates what she calls “verbal first aid,” the content of which is rather nebulous, and the clinical support for which is, well, rather nebulous as well. We should perhaps refrain from speculating what her interest in classical homeopathy means for her psychotherapy or verbal first aid...

Full lunacy here: Encyclopedia of American Loons: #1294: Judith Acosta

Phrenic nerve injury: a rare but serious complication of chiropractic neck manipulation | Edzard Ernst

Neck pain is a common problem which often causes significant disability. Chiropractic manipulation has become one of the most popular forms of alternative treatment for such symptoms. This seems surprising considering that neck manipulations are neither convincingly effective nor free of adverse effects.

The current Cochrane review on this subject could not be clearer: “Done alone, manipulation and/or mobilization were not beneficial; when compared to one another, neither was superior.” In the absence of compelling evidence for efficacy, any risk of neck manipulation would tilt the risk/benefit balance into the negative...

Read on: Phrenic nerve injury: a rare but serious complication of chiropractic neck manipulation

Perhaps not the best anti-vaccine argument you should use

In a Facebook discussion about vaccines, “Kitti St. John” decided that she was going to display her bigoted views of autistics. While trying to convince people that vaccines are bad, she linked vaccines to autism and then compared an autistic child to “an agro chimpanzee.” She then goes on a rant about diets and nature and how vaccines have torn us all apart or something. She even believes that people, healthy people, “do not catch contagious disease.” […]

Read more at: Perhaps not the best anti-vaccine argument you should use by Reuben

Sharyl Attkisson and big, fat frauds

To say that Sharyl Attkisson, the former CBS reporter, has been acting a little weird lately is an understatement. It seems that she believes that there is a vast government conspiracy to keep her quiet. If that’s the case, the government is doing an awful job at it. She’s been speaking everywhere, including a testimony before the US Congress. […]

Read more at: Sharyl Attkisson and big, fat frauds by Reuben

Wonderland (4) – ‘a clarion call for medical ethics’ | Edzard Ernst

Even though it has been published less than a month ago, my new book ‘A SCIENTIST IN WONDERLAND…‘ has already received many most flattering reviews. For me, the most impressive one was by the journal ‘Nature'; they called my memoire ‘ferociously frank’ and ‘a clarion call for medical ethics’. I did promise to provide several […]

Read on: Wonderland (4) – ‘a clarion call for medical ethics’

Colloidal silver for cancer? No, it’s for enriching fraudsters! | Edzard Ernst

Few alternative remedies are more popular than colloidal silver, i.e. tiny particles of silver suspended in a liquid, and few represent more irresponsible quackery. It is widely promoted as a veritable panacea. Take this website (one of thousands), for instance; it advertises colloidal silver in the most glowing terms:

Here are some of the diseases against which Colloidal Silver has been used successfully Acne, Allergies, Appendicitis, Arthritis, Blood parasites, Bubonic plague,..

Read more: Colloidal silver for cancer? No, it’s for enriching fraudsters!