Some stories peddled on Twitter are beyond ridiculous. Man’s tumor shrinks when he alters environment, shuns cancer treatments in favor of acts of kindness: http://t.co/79ua1XrLTP — HealthRanger (@HealthRanger) July 11, 2014 This particular one, published at the website run by Mike Adams, the self-described consumer health advocate (who I have written about here and here),…Continue Reading…
In my previous post, I reported on legal threats recently made by Mike Adams against Forbes and one of its contributing writers, Jon Entine, who oversees the Genetic Literacy Project. Entine is hardly the first science writer/blogger to shine a spotlight on Adams, whose penchant for raw foods, alternative health treatments and various outlandish conspiracy…Continue Reading…
It is not unusual for public figures to be unhappy with how they are portrayed in the media. Sometimes their complaints are understandable, other times not so much. What is unusual is for a public figure to take legal action against a journalist. That’s because in the United States there is a very high bar…Continue Reading…
Unlike some in the science blogosphere, I haven’t found it worthwhile to write much about Mike Adams, whose conspiracy-laden screeds and paeans to raw foods and unproven alternative medicine treatments appear on a website of his called Natural News. (I have briefly discussed Adams on one previous occasion.) Here’s an apt description from David Gorski: His website is a one-stop shop, a repository…Continue Reading…
Why do people turn to alternative medicine? After posing this question last year, Steven Novella said it’s not because western medicine is failing. Rather, he explained, many people have personal experiences with illness and health care, and personal experience can have a powerful influence on our beliefs (even if we are generally science and evidence-based…Continue Reading…
There was a time when Gary Null, a popular alternative health speaker and author, was the Deepak Chopra of nutrition. He’s written best-selling books (one of them about reversing the aging process) and like Chopra, has been featured by PBS during fundraising drives. Nearing 70, Null was in the news several years ago when he sued…Continue Reading…
If you know anyone who swears by acupuncture, homeopathy, or any other unproven treatments that fall under the alternative medicine rubric, then you know there is no dissuading them with a science-based argument. What matters most to alternative health devotees is their own personal experiences and the people they trust–like Dr. Oz, Oprah, Prince Charles,…Continue Reading…
One of the big reasons why evidence-based arguments so often fail to persuade is that people turn to their own trusted sources for information. For example, I know that Vandana Shiva is peddling a load of horseshit about Indian farmers committing suicide en masse supposedly because of Monsanto and GMOs. (There’s a part of me…Continue Reading…
I have a family member with some apparent gastrointestinal issues. The other night, while visiting, she was belching like a frat house drunkard. The episodes picked up in intensity after dinner. It was quite the entertainment for my two boys, who began gulping their grape juice to keep up with their best imitations. Amid the…Continue Reading…
Chris Mooney finds much to admire with this list of Steve Jobs revelations, leaked from Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography: He gave up Christianity at age 13 when he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine. (AP) * He was returning from an apple farm on one of his fruitarian diets when he chose the name…Continue Reading…