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The Expanded Access Navigator – Helping Patients In Need of Potentially Life-Saving Drug Treatments
By: Richard A. Moscicki, M.D. Patients with serious or immediately life-threatening diseases or conditions who have no comparable or satisfactory alternative therapy and who seek access to potentially life-saving investigational drugs will have another option to guide them through the … Continue reading → (Source: FDA Voice)
Source: FDA Voice - July 24, 2017 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Are Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop winning against skeptics?
The ubiquity of quackery and pseudoscience of the sort epitomized by Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop empire can be depressing if you're a skeptic. Sometimes it feels as though it's not worth refuting the nonsense she peddles. But it is. Just maybe not in the way you think. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 21, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking detoxi detoxification Goop Gwyneth Paltrow vaccines Source Type: blogs

A physicist clueless about cancer lectures cancer biologists on … cancer!
Paul Davies is a physicist turned Brave Maverick Cancer Researcher who thinks that, as an outsider, he's had an insight to the origin of cancer. The problem is that his "insight" is 100 years old. Scientists rejected it long ago because it doesn't fit with the evidence and produces no promising strategies to improve cancer care. Naturally, Davies cries "Big pharma!" (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 18, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Science Skepticism/critical thinking atavism atavistic oncology Newsweek Paul Davies Source Type: blogs

Sen. Ron Johnson threatens to obstruct passage of the bill funding the FDA if “ right-to-try ” language isn ’ t added
"Right-to-try" laws claim to help terminally patients by allowing them access to experimental drugs before they are approved, when, in fact, their purpose is to undermine and weaken the FDA and such laws strip legal and regulatory protections from patients using such drugs. Now advocates are making a new push to pass right-to-try by embedding it in the very law that funds the FDA. They might succeed if they encounter no opposition from constituents. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 17, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Goldwater Institute PDUFA Prescription Drug User Fee Act right to try Ron Johnson Trickett Wendler Right to Try Act of 2017 Source Type: blogs

Gwyneth Paltrow ’ s quack empire goop strikes back against Dr. Jen Gunter
Gwyneth Paltrow's goop website is a wretched hive of scum and quackery peddling dubious "wellness" products like vaginal "Jade Eggs" to affluent women. Yesterday, she corralled a couple of her "medical experts" to strike back at a persistent critic of goop's pseudoscience and mystical woo. It did not go well—for goop or its enabling "integrative" physicians. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 14, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Aviva Romm Goop Gwyneth Paltrow homeopathy Jade Eggs Jen Gunter Stephen Gundry vaginal eggs Source Type: blogs

More on the politicization of school vaccine mandates …
I've been warning about how school vaccine mandates have become increasingly politicized. HBO's. VICE agrees. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 13, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking antivaccine HBO politicization vaccines VICE Source Type: blogs

Massive measles outbreaks in Europe: A harbinger of things to come in the US?
Right now, Europe is in the middle of a massive measles outbreak that has resulted in 35 deaths. Is Europe a harbinger of things to come in the US? (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 12, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking France Italy measles measles outbreak MMR Romania school vaccine mandate Source Type: blogs

An antivaxer starts a WhiteHouse.gov petition for a five year moratorium on childhood vaccines. Hilarity ensues.
An old "friend" of the blog, Kent Heckenlively, has started a WhiteHouse.gov petition for a five year moratorium on childhood vaccines, until the government answers his questions about vaccines that can never be answered and shows evidence of their safety that he'll never believe. Yes, the delusion is strong in this one, but, sadly, he's not alone. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 11, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Quackery Donald Trump Kent Heckenlively petition vaccines WhiteHouse.gov Source Type: blogs

Trial By Error: The CDC Drops CBT/GET
By David Tuller, DrPH This is the beginning of a new phase for “Trial by Error.” I initially assumed that my work on PACE and ME/CFS (or ME, or CFS/ME, or CFS) would be a one-off investigation, and then I’d move on to other projects. But after my 15,000-word series was posted on Virology Blog in October of 2015, the story kept going and going. I couldn’t stop myself—there was always more to write about. But it was all very complicated and I didn’t know where it would lead. And then the issue gained traction and momentum, especially after the release last year of the trial data, which revealed how mu...
Source: virology blog - July 10, 2017 Category: Virology Authors: David Tuller Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

Mea culpa! Orac praised the new CDC director for her pro-vaccine views, but missed the quackery in her past.
When HHS Secretary Dr. Tom Price announced that Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald would be the new CDC Director, he breathed a sigh of relief because in her previous job as Georgia Commissioner of Public Health she was suitably pro-vaccine and pro-science. He should have looked a bit closer and gone a few years further back. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 10, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Quackery American Academy of Family Physicians anti-aging Brenda Fitzgerald CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Donald Trump Georgia Department of Public Health Source Type: blogs

In the age of Donald Trump, vaccine policy is becoming politicized, with potentially deadly consequences (revisited)
The usual stereotype of an antivaxer is a hippy dippy left wing granola cruncher. The case of Texas shows that increasingly the antivaccine movement is right wing. Worse, it's becoming more political and harder for Republican legislators to ignore. I fear vaccine science is becoming as politicized as climate science, with results disastrous for public health. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 7, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Bill Zedler Michigan for Vaccine Choice Texans for Vaccine Choice Texas vaccines Source Type: blogs

Here ’s something completely different for low back pain
Follow me on Twitter @RobShmerling It’s a question that has challenged generations of patients and their doctors. The answer has changed over the years. When I was in medical school in the early 1980s, bedrest for a week or more was often recommended for severe back pain. This sometimes included hospital admission. Then, research demonstrated that prolonged bedrest was actually a bad idea. It was no better (and often worse) than taking it easy for a day or two followed by slowly increasing activity, including stretching and strengthening the back. Medications, including pain relievers, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory dru...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - July 6, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Back Pain Complementary and alternative medicine Health Injuries Pain Management Source Type: blogs

President Trump appears poised to betray the antivaccine movement again. Suckers.
Because of Donald Trump's long history of antivaccine statements, his meeting with Andrew Wakefield during the presidential campaign, and his meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. during the transition, antivaxers thought Trump would give them what they want. They were wrong, just the latest to realize that they've been conned. Is it so wrong for me to feel serious schadenfreude here? (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 6, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Brenda Fitzgerald CDC Donald Trump Georgia Department of Public Health vaccines Source Type: blogs

Post-NECSS thanks
No new Insolence today, I'm afraid. But I have an explanation. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 5, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Announcements Antivaccine nonsense Blog housekeeping Complementary and alternative medicine Skepticism/critical thinking Donald Trump NECSS vaccines Source Type: blogs

Yawn. Another study tries to convince us that mind-body interventions can “ reprogram our DNA. ” It fails.
A recent systematic review has been touted as demonstrating that "mind-body" practices like yoga can reprogram our DNA. There are several reasons to doubt these claims, not the least of which is the history of bias in past studies on this topic. (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 3, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Deepak Chopra mediation mind-body yoga Source Type: blogs