If it walks like a duck…
Here-in we discuss our disgust for fake medicine and the purveyors and pushers of such quackery.
Technically bleach to cure “parasites” from autism. Because genetics and neo-natal development just couldn’t possibly be the real reason for Autism.
Oooohhhh I’ve got a good one!
My old university roommate has shacked up with a new lady friend. This woman is a “doctor” of Quantum Medicine, an osteopath, and a practitioner of Body Talk. I’m not linking to any of those, because they’re all quackery. Search them out on your own, if you dare having it in your Google history!
Look, I’ve been married for 24 years now. I often call my bride a witch, because she (as do many/most women) just has a level of intuition that is above normal humans. There are clearly things in the universe we do not understand, things which may in fact break the laws of physics.
Quantum Medicine is decidedly not one of those things.
My Facebook feed is now bombarded almost daily with my buddy’s posts about this seminar or that seminar (all for the low, low price of nowayinhellI’mgivingheradime dollars).
I’m a skeptic by nature – all hail James Randi! – but this stuff sends me over the edge.
Dr. Oz. He infuriates me. Sure, great surgeon, I know. He also obviously likes money. A lot. So he sold his soul to Oprah and then quackery. Bastard.
When I was 13, my brother – a surgeon – took me with him to visit the museum of quackery on the campus of SLU’s med school. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s still open (at least to the public), but it was fascinating and incredible, especially being walked through by a doctor with an innate distaste for quackery.
And since we’re going there:
Fully endorsed.
EDITED: apparently the fellow who founded and owned the collection from the Museum of Quackery closed it waaaaaay back in 1986, but donated his collection to the St. Louis Science Center, who then loaned it to the University of Minnesota who displayed it for a while as a separate museum, and now it is part of a special exhibit at the awesome Science Museum of Minnesota.
Oh yeah, the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. The Science Museum (of Minnesota) cycles through a lot of their inventory because there is so much to display. I’ve seen the kind of helmet doohickey that 1955 Doc Brown was wearing when 1985 Marty McFly knocked on his door. They have an X-Ray machine that shoestores would use until the '80s where people could see how their feet in the shoes and also flood their feet with X-Radiation. I think they had an E-Meter the last time was there. Good, if sad stuff.
Yep! That’s the collection.
One of the most haunting ones that I remember vividly from my visit way back when was this devise that looked like small salad tongs, almost, that had a third handle attached to a scythe-like blade in the middle. It was for removing tonsils. The doctor/surgeon would extend the blade past the tongs, then grip the tonsils with the tongs themselves, and finally yank the middle handle up to shear them off.
Still gives me shudders. Looked like something out of Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers.
I assume you guys all know Ben Goldacre and his blog/books on quack science?
I admit I’ve never really encountered believers in quack medicine before my in-laws. It’s surprising to me that they don’t actually believe or care much about the evidence of any which one in particular: sometimes it’s homeopathy, sometimes it’s natural products or acupuncture or quack nutrition, whatever. The only thing they seem to believe in is that they don’t like science.
I listen to lots of sports radio because, well, since I live in Everett and work in Redmond, I spend a long fucking time by myself in my car. And John Clayton is an awesome football nerd.
The snake oil that gets sold there is remarkable. My favorite is one fucking hard-on cure all that promises higher “nitrous oxide” levels and “if results are too intense, decrease usage”.
Seriously, what the fuck. Yeah, the snake oil idea is older than god, but it still annoys me there’s some gap-toothed dumb-shit sitting around somewhere that’s all like “hey, that’s the stuff I need to knock up my step-daughter!”
Note that this is coming from a guy who whom acupuncture worked for… and I don’t even believe acupuncture works. I’m still trying to figure this out.
Surely you meant something else. Maybe homeopath?
No I didn’t, and don’t call me Shirley.
Quackery at it’s finest!
There is zero practical difference between any D.O. I have ever seen and their M.D. counterparts.
Well, except for like, a dozen years of study, state board certification and… Y’know, science.
What the actual hell are you talking about? They have state boards and are licensed in the same way MDs are. Not to mention a general practitioner doesn’t go to school for a dozen ears. Both MDs and DOs are generally a 4 year program followed by internship and residency. There’s no difference.
Heck, I’d have to double check, but I think there were a couple of people pursuing DOs in my class at Case Western. It’s been a long time, so I could be misremembering that
To clarify, I am referring to the US. It could certainly be different in Canada or elsewhere
Here is an article explaining the difference from Forbes, and why you can’t cure Scarlett Fever with massage:
You know where else people with lousy grades go for medical degrees? To the Caribbean, to schools you have never heard of, just like osteopaths. You know what people call both when they are finished? “Doctor”. They are certainly right that there are crappy doctors out there of all sorts. Does going to an MD reduce the chance of getting a crappy doctor? Maybe. But dismissing everyone with a DO as a quack would be stupid.
I dunno, sounds like a chiropractor scam to me. Just because you take coursework doesn’t mean it’s science or useful.
It’s funny because I’ve been to DOs but never seen any of that stuff. It was just like going to any other doctor.
Chiropractors seem to be doing the same thing. There are doctorates in chiropractics now.