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Why oh why do people still want to normalize the use of magic and illusion into the practice of medicine?
We’ve spent decades codifying and rooting out the bullshit practices and have steeled ourselves against ‘good common sense’ notions and looked where the evidence points us. There is no mystery to evidence based medicine it has been shown empirically to work. Contrast that with ‘alternative or integrative‘ or ‘whatever term the quacks are using now to sound legitimate and authoritative‘ which is not evidence based, not rigorously tested and not frakking effective. What is most saddening is that professionals who have been well-educated can fall into the woo-trap just as easy as the common bloke. The CBC reports on a quack siting here in my home town:
“An Edmonton doctor who recently won a major medical prize says the only way to bridge the divide between traditional medicine and alternative methods is to listen to the needs of patients.”
Oh FFS! Alternative Medicine … has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call “alternative medicine” that’s been proved to work? Medicine. “Bridging gaps” with quackery results in dead people. It is that simple.
“Dr. Vohra was recently awarded the 2013 Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. At $250,000, it’s the largest prize of its kind in North America.”
Quack wins quackery prize. This just in, earth still orbiting the sun ONCE every 365 days. Let’s take a peek into history and dude behind the Dr.Rodgers Prize (many thanks to askepticrtn.com)
Dr. Hoffer’s obituary mentioned that he had won the Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2007. I never knew such a thing even existed. It does though.
Dr. Rogers is another individual who appears to have dedicated his life to helping people but probably did just the opposite. He worked in family practice for over 30 years and was a clinical instructor at the University of British Columbia. He founded the Thera Wellness Centre in 1977, a not for profit organization devoted to complementary and alternative practices in medicine. Later he created The Centre for Integrated Therapy which evolved into Centre for Integrated Healing in the late 1990′s which later evolved into Inspire Health. A quick review of Inspire Health’s website reveals it is an organization that promotes all sorts of pseudo-scientific nonsense as benefiting cancer patients — from Reiki to therapeutic touch to acupuncture.
According to the Dr. Roger’s Prize website, Dr. Rogers was appointed to the Order of British Columbia, the province’s highest honour, for his pioneering work in alternative and complementary cancer care. In other words, BC awarded him the provinces highest honor for selling worthless cures to desperate cancer victims. Not something that immediately comes to mind as worthy of an award, but then again, I have never won the Order of British Columbia, so I am certainly no expert on what it takes to win a medal. I do know there was a time when, good intentions notwithstanding, we threw snake oil salesmen in jail. Now we give them the Order of British Columbia.
The Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine was established in recognition of Dr. Rogers contribution to complimentary and alternative medicine and his tireless efforts to gain widespread recognition for – and acceptance of – complementary and alternative cancer treatments in this country.
I don’t know what alternative universe the folks at the Dr. Rogers Prize are living in, but back here on planet earth we instinctively know that recognition and acceptance of medical practices shouldn’t come from phony awards awards funded by those pursuing an agenda. It comes from sound scientific evidence that the health practices or modalities being promoted actually work.
Regardless of how well intentioned or tireless Dr. Rogers efforts (and I don’t doubt either), they amount to little more than the promotion and sale of snake oil to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Now in his eighties and suffering from Alzheimer’s, it is sad to reflect on a another man who desperately wanted to help but probably did just the opposite.
Ah, it must feel good to win the snake-oil award for selling cures to desperate people, it must be so gratifying on many levels; how can profiting from the misery of others be anything but?
“Dr. Vohra is the founding director of Complementary and Alternative Research and Education (CARE) at the University of Alberta, the first academic pediatric integrative medicine program in Canada.”
Write down the name and avoid this person at all costs because this sort of medical mendacity gets you dead and impoverishes your family.
“For the sake of her patients, she set about becoming fluent in alternative treatments.”
What a nice way of saying – has stopped listening to Reason and embraced all the magical woo available to the detriment of her patients. Awesome!
“Now she has credibility in both worlds – as a leader in both conventional and complementary and alternative medicine – […]”
Oh LOLfovever. The-fuck-you-don’t get credibility for embracing woo. You don’t get medical credibility for embracing non-evidence based medical practices. Not now, not ever, young padaquack. All you should rightly receive is scorn and derision for making the decision to abandon the scientific method and starting to peddle woo.
“She says studies indicate that 70 per cent of Canadians use complementary therapies, and a significant percentage of them mix traditional and non-traditional remedies without knowing what impact one will have on another.”
Could I get Argumentum ad populum, with a side citation-fucking-needed?! Ring-Ring!! Rationality is calling, Dr. Vohra; and it would, most desperately, like you to return to the fold.
Go to Quackwatch.org for more information on “alternative and integrative” therapies and the harm it causes people.
*Update* – Mother faces criminal charges as she let her son die of a strep infection –
Criminal charges are pending against a Calgary mother who police allege relied on holistic treatments instead of getting medical help for her seven-year-old son’s strep infection. Police allege the mother did not take the boy for treatment, giving him holistic remedies instead.
“The treatment rendered at home was homeopathic in nature. This would include herbal remedies. The mother refused to take the child to a medical professional. No excuse given — just her belief system,” said Staff Sgt. Mark Cavilla.
The boy was bedridden for 10 days prior to his death, police allege.
My defence rests. :(
That friends, is my garage featuring an intrepid thermometer that is presently losing the legibility battle.
Clueless dudes are always going on about the rise of female power, and how good women have it now. Heck, the post-feminist era has been declared, always by dudes, to have arrived.
Bullshit.
Lisa Kudrow, in a scene from Scandal, enumerates some the features of the ingrained patriarchal cultural norms we live within.
Religion inspires hatred.
Anyone proclaiming they are chosen ones, or are better than someone else because of pious qualities x,y,z are almost always horribly unethical people. Case in point the recent frenzy in the United States featuring devout followers of Christ insulting wait staff with homophobic slurs and not tipping them because it ‘goes against god’. But it is always best to let the bigots speak for themselves. First an incident in New Jersey:
When Morales introduced herself to the couple and their two children, the mother was allegedly shocked by Morales’ short hair.
“Oh I thought you were gonna say your name is Dan,” she allegedly said. “You sure surprised us!”
At the end of the meal, Morales was left with no tip on the $93.55 bill. Instead, she found a note on the receipt, reading: “I’m sorry but I cannot tip because I don’t agree with your lifestyle & how you live your life.”
Wow. I’ll let Morales speak for herself in reply to this discrimination.
“I am THOROUGHLY offended mad pissed off and hurt that THIS is what her kids will grow up learning and that I served in the Marines to keep ignorant people like them free. Sorry lady but I don’t agree with YOUR lifestyle and the way you’re raising your kids but you didn’t see me throwing that in your face and giving you shitty service. Keep your damn mouth shut and pray we never cross paths again.”
Let’s get this out of way now – the sexual preferences and orientation of your server has exactly zero to do with the quality of service they provide for you. The problem as illustrated lies entirely within the framework of the person being the asshat. Oh, and are you seeing the love that christians constantly knacker on about any here.
No?
I only see prejudice, fear and bigotry’ the usual unholy trifecta “ethical religious behaviour”.
A popular Italian eatery in Kansas where a server received this charming note on the bill:
“Thank you for your service, it was excellent. That being said, we cannot in good conscience tip you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to GOD. Queers do not share in the wealth of GOD, and you will not share in ours. We hope you will see the tip your fag choices made you lose out on, and plan accordingly. It is never too late for GOD’S love, but none shall be spared for fags. May GOD have mercy on you.”
Thank you religion for keeping one of the strongest sources of ingroup/outgroup trauma alive and well in the 21st century. This is the kind of repugnant thinking that grows out of following bronze-age mythology. The sanctimonious hatred and fear that would prompt someone to write this to their server speaks volumes on how the ethics of religion stack up to modern moral interpretation.
As in, not at fracking all.
Oh sure, I’m generalizing but generalizing correctly. There is no need to look farther than the Republican Party of the United States and the piously-twisted shit that they (the christian right) are proposing on almost a daily basis in the US Congress. Hatred of women, the poor, people who are not white, and not straight are regular targets the christian hate machine.
This undulating wave of vicious hatred spews forth from the same people who like to say “god is love” and if we just let christ into our hearts we can find salvation.
Fuck your god, fuck your christ and a double fuck to your “salvation”.
Sideways.
The treatment of the innocent service staff in restaurants makes me angry you feeble-minded, bigoted, christian fucks. Anyone with the smallest shred of ethical fiber can see the grievous harm your ass-clam of a religion brings into the world and would rightly condemn it for being an insidious, retrograde movement, that is making the world a shittier place to live in.
Ah, the first winter storm of the season. This is the view from the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Building at the University of Alberta.
Fantastic interview with Germaine Greer. Appreciate a great intellect on display.
F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D♭, and E♭. The harmonic minor raises the E♭ to E♮. Its key signature has four flats (see below: Scales and keys).
Its relative major is A-flat major, and its parallel major is F major.
F minor is a key often associated with passion. Two famous pieces in the key of F minor are Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, and Haydn’s Symphony No. 49 in F minor, La Passione.
Glenn Gould once said if he could be any key, he would be F minor, because “it’s rather dour, halfway between complex and stable, between upright and lascivious, between gray and highly tinted…There is a certain obliqueness.”[1]
In the Baroque period, music in F minor was usually written with a three-flat key signature and some modern editions of that repertoire retain that convention.
Again, many thanks to the CBC and Paolo Pietropaolo for bringing us the Signature Series.
I love the Beethoven interspersed with Vivaldi. : )
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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