Uncategorized – Page 25 – The Quackometer Blog

The Two Most Dangerous Words in Medicine are “Studies Show.”

9th December, 2007 3

Jerry Addler has published his New Year’s resolution in Newsweek, I will not report on any amazing new treatments for anything, unless they were tested in large, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trials published in high-quality peer-reviewed medical journals. If that means not telling NEWSWEEK’s readers about, say, a new magnetized-water cure for osteoporosis, cancer and autism—well, there are infomercials to fill that gap. The risk that I might overlook the [read more…]

Tony Blair and Homeopathy

7th December, 2007 56

One thing always puzzled me about Tony Blair (well in fact, many things) was when he rather suddenly came out in defence of homeopathy. Out of the blue, he told the detractors of this weird superstition to back off: I think that most people today have a rational view about science and my advice to the scientific community would be fight the battles you need to fight. I wouldn’t bother [read more…]

Fighting for the Woo Pound in Your Pocket

2nd December, 2007 11

Dr. Manish Bhatia of Hpathy.com has issued a new email newsletter entitled The Fight Back for Homeopathy. Apparently, there are a lot of anti-homeopathy bloggers and newspaper articles around at the moment. Get away? The impact of this, says Dr B, is devastating with homeopathy bleeding to death. Dr B is marshaling the troops for a come-back. He quotes from emails sent to him to document the terrible effect of [read more…]

Massively Distracting, Cruelly Deceiving Quackery

30th November, 2007 3

On the eve of the Society of Homeopaths’ symposium in London on homeopathy and AIDS, the SoH issue a press release. It is a statement about how they are warm and cuddly and complementary and working oh so hard to dominate create a single register of homeopaths. They are definitely not promoting quack cures for AIDS. It is well documented now about how so many of their press releases are [read more…]

Winterson/Goldacre Head-to-Head in the Daily Mail

28th November, 2007 4

The Daily Mail have re-printed the Guardian’s homeopathic spat between Jeanette Winterson and Ben Goldacre. Both articles (trimmed down) are now head-to-head. But not all is at it seams. I have done some photo analysis on the pictures on that page and uncovered a disturbing truth. Look at the picture below. After some photo manipulation I have been able to reveal this… Look at the picture close up. Who do [read more…]

Exradia: Angels or Demons?

12th November, 2007 14

Last June, I wrote about emerging company, Exradia, and their attempts to sell a magic mobile phone battery to the major handset manufacturers, such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Their replacement batteries are supposed to offer health benefits to their owners by jiggling around with the electrical currents in the battery. (Don’t ask me – it’s their theory.) What was shocking about Exradia was they were not your usual flaky [read more…]

be4 + afta

9th November, 2007 4

I have added new analytical debunking capability to the quackometer by employing the subtle subversive humour of the lolcats. For each of the current top 10 web sites that you have been testing with the quackometer, I am providing a link to a lolcats version of the web site. For example, take this site (Lilias Curtin: body detoxification), and it gets turned into this, As you can plainly see, after [read more…]

Dr Elaine Weatherley-Jones: You and Yours and ME

8th November, 2007 18

Radio 4’s You and Yours programme has been running a series on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME. Today saw the last in the series and concentrated on ‘alternative treatments’ for patients who do not get ‘satisfaction’ from their GP. ME is a quack’s dream. It does not have a specific set of diagnostic criteria – it is what left when all other possibilities have been ruled out – follows a cyclical pattern [read more…]

The Quack Language Instinct

5th November, 2007 1

Put down your sweaty iPod Touch and slide your fingers over the downy back of the Quackometer as it makes its debut in the funky new world of podcasting. Yes, I am the guest this week on the Guardian Science Weekly Podcast, and we discuss the language of quackery. My warm-up and support act is some Canadian academic chappie by the name of Steven Pinker. He sounds quite clever but [read more…]

The Memetics of Quackery – Part 1

26th October, 2007 11

This is an old post, but I wanted to bump it up given the current homeopathic shenanigans ***********************************************************************originally posted: Monday, July 17, 2006 In looking at countless quack web sites and having discussions with various quacks on message boards, the inevitable question that I ask myself is “What sort of quack am I dealing with – deluded or fraudulent?” The fraudulent quack knows they are promoting cures and remedies that [read more…]