Early detection of cancer and improved survival: more complicated than most people think

Early detection of cancer, part 2: breast cancer and MRI

IVF and CAM Use
Perhaps the biggest hurdle to broader acceptance of the need for a consistent scientific basis for medical interventions is the attitude that worthless treatments are harmless. I often have the experience, after reviewing the evidence showing lack of efficacy for a specific intervention, of getting the head-tilt and shrug along with some variation of the dismissive attitude,  “Well, if people feel better, then what’s the harm?” In my opinion, ethics and intellectual honesty indicate that we have to do better than that. The “what’s the harm” refrain is so tired and overused that it prompted a website by that na

“The Disappearing Male” – A Pinch of Science, a Pound of Speculation
A documentary film entitled “The Disappearing Male” was first shown on CBC in June, 2009. It can be viewed online here. Some of its rhetoric is reminiscent of Chicken Little: “Where have all the boys gone?” “Millions of males are disappearing.” “We’re on the Titanic and we see the iceberg but we just can’t turn the ship.” “It may be a threat to the survival of the species.” The claims behind the rhetoric are that male to female sex ratios at birth are decreasing, sperm quality and fertility are decreasing, and genitourinary birth

If you’re sick, even the ridiculous can seem sublime
Let’s say you have cancer. And let’s say you’re really, really sick of having cancer. And let’s say that you’re also pretty tired of scans, chemo, radiation, hair loss, nausea. And let’s say you’re not really sick and tired of living, but actually pretty happy to be alive. Finally, let’s say someone says that they can get rid of your cancer, without all of those pesky side-effects. It’s a win-win, no? No. It’s easy to believe in promises that are congruent with our wishes. That’s what makes human beings so easy to deceive. A case in point is the VIBE Machine, a discredited quackery device. This

“There must be a reason,” or how we support our own false beliefs
For a change of pace, I want to step back from medicine for this post, although, as you will see (I hope), the study I’m going to discuss has a great deal of relevance to the topics covered regularly on this blog. One of the most frustrating aspects of being a skeptic and championing science-based medicine is just how unyielding belief in pseudscience is. Whatever realm of science in which there is pseudoscience I wander into, I find beliefs that simply will not yield to science or reason. Wheth

Oriental Medicine or Medical Orientalism?
The following is the second adapted excerpt of an upcoming article called “The Untold Story of Acupuncture.” It is scheduled to be published in December 2009 in Focus in Alternative and Complementary Therapies (FACT), a review journal that presents the evidence on alternative medicine in an analytical and impartial manner. This section argues that the current flurry of interest in acupuncture and Oriental Medicine stems predominantly out of postmodern opposition to Enlightenment rationalism, and bears witness to Orientalism and consumerism in contemporary medicine. In five years, from 1971 to 1975, l directly experienced Est [Erhard