Quackcast

The world really does need more Mark Crislip. Crislip produces Quackcast, a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred, podcast debunking every sort of medical quackery, from acupuncture (double-blind studies demonstrate that sham acupuncture, where no needles are used, is MORE effective than "real" acupuncture) to the psychopaths who spread fear and lies about vaccination, to "energy therapy," homeopathy, and naturopathy.

The podcast is available free from iTunes or Mark's website.

Highly recommended.

 

He's talked about sham surgery. I gather that it's popular in Asia. Of course it's a scam. I have not heard him talk about sound waves for cancer, but I only learned of his podcast and began listening a month or so ago.

Time to listen? How about instead of watching TV? Or if you already listen to podcasts, give this one a listen and see if it's better than the ones you already listen to or not.

I'm just saying this one is excellent and informative.

 

Rob: Mark Crislip has no compunctions against debunking other doctors when they do things not consistent with evidence-based medicine.

Evidence, based on peer-reviewed studies, is the operational word. If your Dr. Saputo does not base his practices on EVIDENCE-based medicine, from PEER-REVIEWED studies, then he's just another quack.

EVERYTHING done in a free-market economy is done for profit. A doctor has to get paid or he cannot pay the rent and put food on the table. Religion is primarily a money-making business. But the REAL "dangerous, ineffective, and downright deadly" treatments are the unscientific quackery generally known as "CAM" ("complimentary and alternative medicine') which uses garbage ideas based on nothing but the quack's vivid imagination.

I recommend Mark Crislip's Quackcast precisely because he uses SCIENCE to base his recommendations, and is not afraid to debunk ANYONE who departs from evidence-based medicine, and unfortunately, that includes some doctors.

This guy is good. Rob will not be convinced because he believes that all doctors are in some giant conspiracy to deprive us of 100% safe remedies that cure everything with zero side-effects. For everyone else, Crislip's is one of the best podcasts out there.

 

No it's not. Alternative medicine is about ignoring science. When a treatment is backed by science, it is no longer "alternative."

Homeopathy is based on the magical concept that substances (which we know as atoms and molecules) have an "essence" that remains behind when there is no longer a single atom or molecule of the substance remaining. Homeopathic treatments are nothing but water or sugar. They have zero benefit. (Except if the problem is low blood sugar, or dehydration.)

Acupuncture has been demonstrated in numerous controlled, double-blind tests, to have no benefit other than that a patient who thinks something was done will sometimes have a nice feeling. But that can be achieved by anything: You don't need to stick needles in them, with the consequent risk of infection.

Herbal medicines are touted by "CAM" practitioners (mane of whom have no medical training!) as safe and effective, in the absence of scientific testing. Such practitioners often claim that there are no side effects, even though everything that has an effect will have a chain of effects, some desirable and others undesirable. Some herbs have quite significant effects, but herbal remedies are sold without any control over the dosage, and many tests have been done showing wide variation in dosage between packages, and even between pills within a single package, since the industry is unregulated. And "alternative" practitioners often sell the remedies they prescribe, which is a clear conflict of interest.

That's just to name three areas of alternative so-called medicine rife with quackery.

Some doctors are incompetent. All practitioners of CAM are frauds.

 

Of course science is not "noble researchers in white coats laboring for the benefit of humanity," though there are such people. Science is a process, a method. And in the absence of any sort of regulation of "alternative medicines," (an exemption obtained by hard lobbying, at great cost, by HUGE multi-national corporations that market "alternative remedies" -- this is not "big pharma" vs. tiny alternative practioners; "alternative" medicine is BIG business operated by companies as big as "big pharma," and in some cases the SAME corporations) the crap sold as "alternative medicine" has no control over quality, dosage, or contaminants.

At least in the case of marijuana (medical or otherwise) the user can generally tell how potent the sample is. With most "alternative" remedies, you have no way of knowing whether you're getting 1/10 the recommended dose, 10 times the recommended dose, or something other than what's on the label entirely. And all of this has been found to be common.

The very insistence by its practitioners that it remain unregulated, should be a dead give-away that CAM is something to be avoided like the plague.

 

Unfortunately, this is not true. Insurance companies nowadays often cover CAM treatments ("Complimentary and Alternative Medicine" = quackery) and the same companies that sell regulated and controlled prescription drugs also sell unregulated "natural" (= quack) remedies.

(Being "natural" is not what makes them quackery. Being untested and unregulated, and poorly controlled if at all as to dosage, is what makes them quackery.)

The bogeyman of "big pharma" is used by CAM practitioners to justify their use of unregulated, uncontrolled, untested treatments, but those treatments often come from big pharma also. Pharmaceutical companies, like auto companies, are in business to make money. And just as Toyota makes both efficient and inefficient vehicles, so "big pharma" makes tested and controlled drugs as well as untested and uncontrolled crap.

The issue is not big pharma. The issue is the science behind a given drug, and whether or not its dosage is properly controlled, which the unregulated CAM treatments are not.

 

Telling a patient she is getting a drug when in fact you are giving her a placebo is considered unethical. It was not always thus. But it is now.

 

Double-blind studies have shown sham acupuncture to be just as "effective" as "real" acupuncture. IOW, you'd have gotten the same "benefit" from twirling toothpicks against your skin as from needles.

It is good that your acupuncturist uses sterile methods. Sadly, most acupuncturists do not clean the area, and they touch the insertion spot with bare hands.

 

I don't think we are disagreeing here: It is considered unethical to prescribe a placebo. In the past this was not the case.

True, but irrelevant. My doctor has me taking fish oil capsules. Since they are over-the-counter, he didn't write an actual prescription. He just told me to take them, and when asked what meds I am taking, I include them in the list. Same for a low-dose aspirin.

That's exactly what I said.

Correct. In clinical trials the patient must be informed that she may be getting the drug, or may be getting a placebo. If different groups are getting different drugs, the subjects must be informed of that. They must give informed consent to the trial protocols. Only then is it ethical to give a placebo without telling the subjects what they are getting.

True. That's why podcasts like Quackcast are so useful.

I lean toward agreement with you. I have gone to chiropractors. I usually get temporary relief, but the pain is back in half an hour or an hour. The question of chiropractors is clouded, however, by the fact that some of them do not limit themselves to spinal manipulation, and go in for unequivocal quackery; and some make outrageous and false claims about the benefits of spinal manipulation, claiming it cures unrelated conditions. I was once told by a chiropractor that she could cure children's ear infections by manipulating their spines. That person belongs in jail!

Introducing the possibility of infection, when it's been shown that sham acupuncture gives the SAME results, is, IMO harm. When a non-invasive treatment (twirling toothpicks against the skin) gives the SAME outcome, and clearly has no potential for harm, then there is NO justification for inserting needles.

BTW, inserting needles or twirling toothpicks at RANDOM points, has also been shown to be just as "effective" as acupuncture at "accepted" acupuncture points, and different styles of acupuncture have entirely different insertion points, based on different and mutually exclusive "theories" about where the points should be. Further, the acupuncture points commonly used in the U.S. today are of very recent origin. They are NOT the points used in "traditional" Chinese acupuncture.