Year: 2014

You’ve seen them all over the internet, from Instagram to Facebook from Twitter to Plurk (remember that), they’re often just called ‘memes’ (after Richard Dawkins’ term for a self-replicating piece of knowledge analogous to a self-replicating gene in biology). Often they’re supposedly inspirational or educational phrases or sayings that people share in the vain hope of changing other people’s minds and behaviour. Aphorisms in graphical form, so I coined the mortmanteau graphorism to make a point about making a point with a picture.

There are several scientists acting like the proverbial sharp stick, constantly poking the balloons of alternative remedy quacks until they burst. They assess the latest nonsensical claims of so-called complementary medicine and then give it a good poke with the sharp end. I do wonder if they ever manage to guilt-trip their targets into giving up their often ludicrous claims of panaceas based on infinitely dilute solutions, candles, stones, touchless massage etc. Of course, if one patient avoids being conned and seeks professional medical help in their time of need rather than turning to quackery and deferring treatments that might save their lives, then they have succeeded.

I’m not against CAM per se, I just want to see the evidence. If it’s science-based, then it’s not alternative, it’s just medicine! Evidence is blinded trials though, not anecdote. Just because you think a particular alt treatment worked is not proof, you may well have got better without it. You can never know for sure, regardless of how convincing the practitioner is nor how convinced you are that conventional medicine is some evil conspiracy in the pocket of big pharma. And, remember you don’t tend to hear the stories from all those people with fatal diseases who turned to alt med and it failed them…often because they’re dead.

But, maybe there is something to be said for the latest alternative practice I heard about just made up, it sounds very sciencey – Remote quantally channelled kinetic agitation.

First, it’s quantized, derived from quantum, which hooks into a whole lot of New Age stuff about consciousness and borrows heavily from the world of modern physics. Everything is channelled these days too, energy, chi, qi, you name it, it’s channelled, bringing harmony and balance to the mind-body-spirit triumvirate. Best of all, it’s “remote” so treatments can be carried out without the practitioner having to leave the comfort of their luxury yacht and more to the point could even be done over the internet so patient and practitioner needn’t meet and no diseased patient’s grime or sweat need taint the practitioner’s delicate hands.

It’s also kinetic that’s movement and energy and ties in with kinesiology. Agitation – the actual treatment agitating your kinetics quantally, one at a time via the internet.

$120 per hour + taxes. Sounds like a bargain to me, where do you sign up? It’s even got a nice pronounceable name: “Remote QUACKA”.

Asthma, headaches, migraine, ADHD, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, allergies, hives, acne, back ache, tennis elbow, cruciate ligament problems, mumps, measles, rubella, chicken pox AND shingles, earache, blindness, doublechin, missing limbs, missing brain. A short list of some of the things this and other sCAM practices really, really, really cannot do anything about.

There is a lot of #BS talked about the harm vaccines might cause, most of it unproven scaremongering by patient advocates, lawyers, quacks and tabloid journalists. There is almost a religion growing out of the antivax campaign that seems to walk hand-in-hand with conspiracy theory nonsense and the gibberish peddled by those who think governments shouldn’t advise us on what to do when it comes to health, even if it could save lives. Here are a few answers to the antivax brigade.

Iron lung photo spotted here - http://www.nullebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/83858344/ – 5—10% of patients with paralytic polio die due to the paralysis of muscles used for breathing.

There is a lot of #BS talked about the harm vaccines might cause, most of it unproven scaremongering by patient advocates, lawyers, quacks and tabloid journalists. There is almost a religion growing out of the antivax campaign that seems to walk hand-in-hand with conspiracy theory nonsense and the gibberish peddled by those who think governments shouldn’t advise us on what to do when it comes to health, even if it could save lives. Here are a few answers to the antivax brigade.

Baby cataracts from Wiki here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella,_congenital – Babies that contract rubella in the womb are at risk of being born deaf (58% of patients), eye abnormalities (43% of patients), congenital heart disease (50% of patients).

There is a lot of #BS talked about the harm vaccines might cause, most of it unproven scaremongering by patient advocates, lawyers, quacks and tabloid journalists. There is almost a religion growing out of the antivax campaign that seems to walk hand-in-hand with conspiracy theory nonsense and the gibberish peddled by those who think governments shouldn’t advise us on what to do when it comes to health, even if it could save lives. Here are a few answers to the antivax brigade.

Child with measles rash – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles – Deaths from measles are rare, but complications can occur, bronchitis, fatal panencephalitis, and in immunocompromised patient, mortality is much higher because of pneumonia risk.