Wednesday 25 November 2009

"Quacks Quacks Everywhere, What A Cause To Think"

Quacks Hijacking Autism Research
The full article can be found here. It would appear that highly speculative research on neuro-inflammation (and many other topics) is being seized upon by various 'alternative medicine' practitioners and even some real GPs and used to peddle untested, ineffective and even dangerous treatments on little to no evidence. It looks like various combinations of wish-thinking, poor understanding of the science and cynical, exploitative quackery.

Lets see science based medicine get some respect please!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

totally agree with what you say but I'd just point out it's 'seized upon'. The autism-woo crowd are truly breath taking in their cherry picking of not even whole studies but just the parts that agree with their preconceptions and hopes.

Anonymous Bloger said...

I've fixed the spelling, thanks :)

I've seen similar things with homoeopaths and research on the transient nano-structures of liquid water.

I don't suppose there is much scientists can do to avoid having their work misused in thins way?
Being careful about use of metaphors and explicitly stating that your research does NOT show what you know 'woo mungers' will claim may help, but its no guarantee as seen in this case.