panacea
Calcaneal spur is a common cause of chronic heel pain and functional disability. This double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of individualized homeopathic (IH) medicines compared to placebo (PL) in managing this condition.
128 participants with chronic heel pain from calcaneal spur were randomly assigned to receive either IH (n = 64) or an identical PL (n = 64) for 6 months. Both groups received standard advice on general management (such as foot exercises and contrast baths). The primary outcome was the change in pain intensity from baseline measured on a 100-mm visual analog scale (VAS). The secondary outcome was the change in lower extremity function measured by the Lower Extremity Functional Scale (LEFS). Outcomes were assessed at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months. Analysis was done using an intention-to-treat approach with a mixed-effects model for repeated measures.
The analysis revealed a statistically significant group × time interaction for VAS pain scores (F-value = 35.12, p < 0.001). At 6 months, the IH group showed a significantly greater mean reduction in pain compared to the PL group (mean difference: −33.28; 95% confidence interval [CI]: −44.3 to −22.2; p < 0.001). Similarly, a significant group × time interaction was observed for LEFS scores (F-value = 33.87, p < 0.001). At 6 months, the IH group had a greater improvement in function (mean difference: 13.78; 95% CI: 9.1–18.4; p < 0.001). Both results were clinically significant. No serious adverse events were reported.
The authors concluded that individualized homeopathy resulted in statistically and clinically significant improvements in pain and function for patients with calcaneal spur compared to PL. These findings suggest that homeopathy may be a viable treatment option for this condition.
This study seems well-designed and is clearly documented. I have read it thoroughly and did not find major flaws. Why, then do I have doubts?
- I have never heard of a homeopathy advocating homeopathy for calcaneal spur.
- I don’t see why homeopathy could alleviate pain.
- The paper reads a little bit as being “too good to be true”.
- The study was conducted at the Calcutta Homoeopathic Medical College & Hospital, West Bengal, (India’s retraction rate has recently climbed to third place worldwide (5,412 total), rate 2.0002 per 1,000).
In any case, before we can accept homeopathy as a treatment of pain caused by calcaneal spur, we need an independent confirmation, preferably not from ardent supporters of homeopathy.
- “The Law of Karma: What you sow is what you reap. If you plant carrots, don’t expect to harvest watermelons.”
- “If you want to see change in the world, become the change you want to see.”
- “If you want to reach a state of Bliss — make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved and the need to judge.”
- “Negative people deplete your energy. Surround yourself with love and nourishment and do not allow the creation of negativity in your environment.”
- “If you want to do really important things in life and big things in life, you can’t do anything by yourself. And your best teams are your friends and your siblings.”
- “Everyone is acting from his own level of consciousness. This is all we can ask of ourselves or anyone else.”
You probably guessed: these gems of wisdom originate from, Deepak Chopra, the guru of platitude-loving Americans. If you don’t want to spend your money on buying one of his books, you can go on the Internet, find one of several available ‘bullshit generators’ and create similarly profound wisdoms all by yourself.
As Deepak is seen to be virtually overflowing with wisdom, spirituality, consciousness, and holistic health, it is perhaps surprising to find his inclusion in the Epstein Files. The link stems primarily from email correspondence and other communications between him and Epstein that have been made public as part of the ongoing disclosures. The records show repeated exchanges dating from at least 2016 through 2019 — well after Epstein’s 2008 conviction as a sex offender — in which the two men discuss a range of topics. These include scheduling meetings or meetings plans, mentions of other public figures, discussions tied to Chopra’s book projects, and exchanges that veer into casual and at times explicit language about “girls” or women. One of the widely circulated emails has Chopra writing to Epstein, “God is a construct. Cute girls are real,” in an apparently informal exploration of consciousness and personal views.
Another released thread shows discussions about meeting logistics, references to public figures such as Marla Maples (the former wife of Donald Trump), and social anecdotes that reveal the personal tenor of some exchanges. These materials were part of the dataset provided to Congress under subpoena as part of its oversight of the Epstein files.
Inclusion in the Epstein Files does not establish that Chopra was involved in any criminal activity or exploitative conduct. U.S. authorities and journalists emphasise that the raw disclosures document communications and connections — not necessarily illegal behavior — and require careful interpretation.
Nonetheless, many of the public reactions to Chopra’s appearance in these disclosures have been sharp. Social media posts and news coverage have highlighted the tone of certain messages, leading to debate and scrutiny from both followers and critics. In response to the heightened attention and criticism, Deepak Chopra issued a public statement acknowledging the gravity of what has been revealed and offering regret for the way some past communications may read in light of what the world now widely knows about Epstein’s crimes. He wrote on social media that he was “deeply saddened by the suffering of the victims in this case” and that he “unequivocally condemn[s] abuse and exploitation in all forms.” Chopra also stated that any contact he had with Epstein was “limited and unrelated to abusive activity,” and he described some of his past messages as reflecting “poor judgment in tone.”
One such ‘sharp reaction’ appeared on Facebook. As it is quite funny as well as very poignant, allow me to show it to you:
Annie McCubbin 6 February at 10:20
WOW DEEPAK THIS SEEMS TO BE A QUANTUM OF A MESS YOU’VE GOT YOURSELF INTO.
Well looky looky here. In the quantum field of possibilities, Deepak has manifested himself one thousand three hundred mentions in the Epstein files.
With the cavalier camaraderie of two average dudes leaning on the bonnet of a pick-up truck, Chopra and Epstein, amid nauseating pseudo intellectual discourse, discuss the noises cute girls make, and whether or not Deepak had found Epstein a cute Israeli.
This, it should be noted, is ten years after Epstein was registered as sex offender of children.
Chopra has made an admission, of sorts. It has the tone of someone who has spent his life beguiling his followers from behind a screen of opaque confounding verbiage, so I guess it’s true to form when he writes the sentence: –
‘Some past emails have surfaced that reflect poor judgement in tone. I regret that and understand how they read today given what was publicly known at the time.’
No Deepak, you purveyor of impenetrable piffle, it’s not how they read ‘today’, it’s just how they read. So how about you take out the obfuscating ‘today’, turn comments back on, come out from behind the infinite consciousness of the karmic trance of the egoic super self, and face the music.
These emails are not anachronistic innocent exchanges between two older gentlemen musing in a reflective way about the opposite sex. No, these men presented a clear and present danger to women. These exchanges are between a seventy-one-year grifter who has promised his millions of followers hope and healing, and a sixty-four-year-old registered sex offender who had been charged with procuring a minor for prostitution.
So, this great spiritual leader. This purveyor of divine transcendence. This guru who imbues his incomprehensible gobbledy gook with the historical spiritual relevance of the subcontinent, has shown a complete paucity of decency, care and morality
Not only are his discussions with Epstein disturbing but they’re peppered with moments where he cynically mocks his own spiritual repartee.
Perhaps his millions of followers who may have felt spiritually dull witted, may be relieved to discover that his entire shtick is a simple reordering of the following eighteen words:-Consciousness, meditation, infinite, universe, god, vibration, stillness, mirror, manifest, luminous. elemental, connection, awareness, love, gratitude, eternal, karma, and divine.
His collection of books, videos, podcasts, products like ‘The ritual care kit.’ supplements and ‘wellness retreats.’ are not the result of Deepak’s deep wisdom but merely pseudoscientific quasi spiritual guff, concocted with all the care of a four-year-old making a cake with dirt, a hair clip, their mothers Estée Lauder anti-aging cream and the stuffing from the dog’s toy rabbit.
Why do so many of us collapse so willingly into the arms of these grifter gurus?
Well, we are told the answer to our emptiness is to look within. We are just an inspirational quote away from happiness. We are seduced by bite sized morsels of the transcendent to sooth our souls.
We can ask what is missing from my life, and the answer will be delivered in three hours via Amazon. $35 plus shipping. How easy is it to sit on our couches and have the soothing tone of Deepak deliver an immersive learning experience into our noise cancelling head phones? Maybe we may muse, it would be truly beneficial to attend one of his wellness retreats. What’s money when we’re on the path to enlightenment? Perhaps we’ll discover the divine goddess within? Seems easier than fighting for the actual rights of women.
Connecting to the self is given a big rap in wellness circles but it seems to be at the cost of reconnecting with others.
The self-care, self-love movement, implying poverty or illness is a misalignment with the abundance on offer from the universe, absolves its’ followers of any responsibility to help others. You sick or poor? Manifest better.
It has been a fabulous distraction from the rapacity of the neocons, dismantling our social structures and denuding our public services, confident in the knowledge we’re too busy healing from within to look outward.
But the empty void within will not be filled by listening to the lilting tones of Deepak. By all means work out your maladaptive patterns and beliefs by talking to a psychologist but maybe swear off the gurus for a bit. It seems they all, at some point, fall from grace.
Chopra while preaching love compassion and peace, was showing off to his convicted sex offender friend, that he can play the misogynistic game as good as the big boys. Meanwhile women all over the world are dying at the hands of their partners. Men schooled and supported in the ideology that women are lesser beings to be controlled, used, punished and discarded.
To so lightly squander the loyalty of your trusting audience seems careless of you Deepak, but maybe the grifting isn’t over. Maybe you can obfuscate out of this, and have an online well published dark night of the soul replete with a brand-new great awakening. There has to be a couple of apps and a book in it.
I hope not. I hope this tearing in the space time continuum has revealed the black hole of grifting where the snake oil salesman sit waiting with their three easy payment options.
Anyway, let us end on one of Deepak’s quotes. ‘Karma memory and desire are just the software of the soul.’
Well Deepak, better strap in, I hear karma can be a real bitch.
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is raising alarms about new federal legislation that would make it easier for homeopathy groups to market and sell their products. Opposing homeopathy is at the core of CFI’s mission, given that it is dangerous pseudoscience and misleads American patients and consumers to the tune of millions of dollars every year.
HR 7050 was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 14, 2026, by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), co-sponsored by Reps. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) and Mike Kennedy (R-UT). The bill seeks to ensure “continued consumer access” to homeopathic products by amending the existing Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA).
Any member of Congress who seeks to protect consumers from medical fraud should be fighting to remove homeopathic products from the marketplace, not ensure “access” to them. Homeopathy is grounded in pseudoscience from the late 1700s that claims the more dilute a medicine, the more potent it is. That is a demonstrably false claim. Homeopathic products typically contain no active ingredients that constitute medicine. They are no better than a placebo as a medical intervention.
The bill would prohibit federal consumer protection agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), from ensuring that homeopathic products meet objective standards of safety and efficacy. Instead, it codifies the so-called standards in the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, effectively leaving it to the homeopathic industry to police itself. The Pharmacopoeia is shrouded in secrecy, and CFI has had to go to the length of suing the Department of Health and Human Services in an effort to access its contents.
Moreover, in 2016 the FTC expressly declared in a policy statement that homeopathic products can only be legally marketed if they communicate clearly to consumers that there is no scientific evidence the products work! It is this kind of consumer protection that the homeopathy industry hopes to defeat with this legislation.
Additionally, the bill exempts homeopathic drug products from doing the laboratory testing that would establish the potency of each active ingredient. Other drugs are held to these standards, but it’s clear that the homeopathic industry does not want it known that their ingredients have no discernible therapeutic value.
Finally, the bill directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services – currently Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – to create a Homeopathic Drug Product Advisory Committee to advise the Secretary regarding the regulation of homeopathy. The majority of the committee’s ten members would be representatives from homeopathic manufacturers, from the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia Convention, and from other groups with obvious ties to homeopathy (as well as one member who is a naturopathic doctor). Again, the theme is insider and deferential regulation.
HR 7050 is currently before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. CFI’s Office of Public Policy will be aggressively lobbying against the bill. We urge every CFI supporter to contact their Representatives and Senators in Congress and to call on them to vote against HR 7050.
Yesterday, I posted the account of a WHO summit on so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). I deliberately abstained from any comment. Yet, the arguments put forward do certainly deserve some critical evaluation. In particular, I feel that this paragraph needs discussing:
The WHO says its Summit on Traditional Medicine is essentially about repeating this sifting process for traditional remedies used in other parts of the world. It aims to apply rigorous scientific analysis to all them in order to properly assess their claimed benefits and potential harms. By 2034, it says, it will publish a definitive list of which traditional treatments work – and which don’t. “Working on traditional medicine doesn’t mean we will use shortcuts or endorse things that are unproven,” Dr Sylvie Briand, the WHO’s Chief Scientist, told The Telegraph at the conference in New Delhi. The aim was first to document what traditional treatments existed around the world “and then see what could be more useful to address the disease of this century”.
To many readers such words (which are voiced regularly) might seem entirely reasonable. Yet, they clearly are not! So, let me pick them apart.
Applying rigorous scientific analysis to all SCAMs in order to properly assess their claimed benefits and potential harms. This plan looks fine – but only if you know little bit about the subject:
- It is obvious that not every nonsensical idea merits proper assessment. Many can be rejected out of hand by simply using common sense. A Peruvian man’s piercing ululation, for instance, might not require scientific testing – or, to put it bluntly, testing nonsense will result in nonsense and is a waste of money.
- It is a demonstrable fact that many other SCAMs have already been assessed properly and most have been found wanting. In my recent book, for example, I have evaluated 202 SCAMs and found only a handfull that pass muster. The problem for the WHO and other such organisations or individuals is not that the evidence is unavailable, but that they elect to ignore it.
- And that leads to a further important point. What the WHO and other organisations or individuals call “to properly assess” might not coincide with what scientists would consider a critical evaluation of the best available evidence. As we have seen with depressing regularity on this blog, biased assessments inevitably result in false-positive conclusions.
By 2034, the WHO will publish a definitive list of which traditional treatments work and which don’t. This might look encouragingly ambitious but it is not. On the conreary, it is discouragingly naive and totally impossible. Let me use just one of the many hundred SCAM modalities, acupuncture, to explain this in more detail:
- There are dozens of different types of acupuncture, e.g. traditional, Western, Korean, Japanese, needle, ear, body, scalp, tongue, electro, etc., etc.
- Acupuncture is touted as a panacea; this means each form of acupuncture would need to be tested in clinical trials of thousands of different conditions.
- Moreover, there are uncounted different treatment schedules with acupuncture.
- Even if rigorous, one trial can never enough for a firm verdict. To make sure that the result of one single trial is not a fluke, we need several independent replications.
- Combining all these imponerabilities would require thousands clinical trials and many decades before one could claim that one has established that this form of acupuncture works for this condition, and that form of acupuncture does not.
- In case the eventual verdict for acupuncture for any given condition is negative, some clever dick would surely emerge and claim, “but, of course, you did not do the test correctly! So, your verdict is mistaken”
- Add to this the fact that hundreds of different SCAM modalities exist and most of them claim to be a cure-all, we would not need a decade but several centuries to arrive at the embarrassingly naive aim of the WHO.
Considering these problems, I fear, that the ‘WHO Summit on Traditional Medicine’ might be full of good will [to be entirely honest, I am not even sure that this is true!] but this and similarly ignorant, naive and promotional initiatives certainly are leading us up an expensive, wasteful and dangerous garden path.
PS
Oh, I almost forgot!
To criticize is easy, some will say.
Why does Ernst not show us how it should be done properly?
How do we arrive at a point where we can say: THIS SCAM WORKS FOR THIS CONDITION, AND THAT SCAM DOES NOT?
The proper way of achieving this goal is to do what we do in all medicine and remember that the onus of proof lies on the shoulders of those who make the therapeutic claim. In other words, if acupuncturists claim that a certian type of acupuncture can effectively treat asthma, for example, let them come up with the evidence! Until the evidence is on the table, the claim should be viewed as unproven which means the treatment cannot be recommended.
Simple!
The WHO says it is sifting the wheat from the chaff in order to save lives – but critics fear it is pandering to India and China; this TELEGRAPH article is worth reading in full; here I will merely quote a few passages from it.
Mongolian shamans beat wicker drums to summon ancestral spirits. A Peruvian man in a headdress unleashes a piercing ululation. And a man from Kentucky tells me the body can rid itself of cancer if you eat the right shrubs. It is a line-up one might expect at the healing field at Glastonbury but this is a conference centre in New Delhi and the event has been organised by the World Health Organization; the WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine. It’s the second gathering of its kind, following an inaugural meeting in Gujarat in 2023, and the three-day event has drawn hundreds of delegates from around the world. Alongside yoga instructors, aromatherapists, Chinese herbal practitioners and a small army of homeopaths, sit senior WHO officials, leading scientists and health ministers from across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Only Gwyneth Paltrow and her wellness website Goop is missing. They are here to “harness the potential” of traditional medicine, a catch-all term for practices that pre-date, and sit outside, modern evidence-based healthcare; therapies that for the most part have long been dismissed as quackery by mainstream science. What counts as “traditional medicine” ranges from drinking herbal teas to Indian Ayurveda, a holistic “wellness system” combining oils, herbs, homeopathy, yoga and meditation to “balance” and “heal” the body. To critics – and there are many – the scene is absurd.
So why is the WHO – a global authority on evidence-based health – giving a platform to this stuff? Has it fallen victim to the seductive power of TikTok-based wellness like so many of the west’s middle classes? Or has it – as some critics allege – been bought off by the traditional medicine super powers of India and China? …
The WHO says its Summit on Traditional Medicine is essentially about repeating this sifting process for traditional remedies used in other parts of the world. It aims to apply rigorous scientific analysis to all them in order to properly assess their claimed benefits and potential harms. By 2034, it says, it will publish a definitive list of which traditional treatments work – and which don’t. “Working on traditional medicine doesn’t mean we will use shortcuts or endorse things that are unproven,” Dr Sylvie Briand, the WHO’s Chief Scientist, told The Telegraph at the conference in New Delhi. The aim was first to document what traditional treatments existed around the world “and then see what could be more useful to address the disease of this century”.
One idea is that some traditional practices like yoga and meditation, while perhaps not offering direct curative benefits, could play an important role in preventative medicine. After all, so-called non-communicable diseases, often caused by lifestyle factors such as poor diet, chronic stress and a lack of exercise are now by far the biggest killers across the globe. “Many traditional systems of medicine take a holistic view and focus on strengthening the person as a whole, not just treating isolated symptoms,” Dr Sung Chol Kim, Unit Head for Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine at the WHO told The Telegraph in Delhi. But others are sceptical. They fear the WHO, which is struggling for funding in the wake of the US leaving the organisation and widespread aid cuts, is simply pandering to India and China where traditional medicine is big business. Even if well intentioned, they worry that the discovery process the WHO has set in motion will end up promoting and legitimising quackery. “I think highly of the WHO. However, by giving a platform to traditional medicine practitioners who promote treatments that are unproven – or even disproven – such as homeopathy, the organisation risks legitimising quackery. That, in my view, is both unethical and irresponsible,” said Dr Edzard Ernst, a British-German academic who specialises in the study of complementary and alternative medicine…
Even within the WHO, there is tension over what is being platformed at the summit. One senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described homeopathy … as “complete nonsense”. “There is not one shred of evidence anywhere, absolutely anywhere, that suggests it works,” the official said, while acknowledging pressure to engage rather than alienate powerful member states. Dr Ernst, the British-German academic, said: “Many experts are puzzled by this attitude. The most likely explanation is that the WHO is bowing to political will instead of science.” ….
Globally, an estimated 4.6 billion people already use some form of traditional medicine. In sub-Saharan Africa, millions rely on traditional healers as their first – and sometimes only – point of care. Its use can delay access to appropriate treatment, and some practices have been linked to the spread of disease. This week, 41 people were reported to have died after undergoing rituals to initiate them into manhood in South Africa, a central part of which involves unsafe and brutal circumcisions. Another example, common in places like Uganda, Benin, and Burkina Faso, includes small skin incisions into which herbs are rubbed – sometimes referred to as “vaccinations” – increasing the risk of HIV transmission through the reuse of razors and knives. Efforts to regulate practitioners are underway, but progress remains slow. Malawi’s Minister for Health and Sanitation, Madalitso Baloyi, said her government wants clear guidance from the WHO. “As a Ministry, we want to ensure [traditional remedies] are tested and quality checked,” she told The Telegraph. She added that, at the moment, traditional medicine is being done “behind closed doors”, and that the WHO process would help bring it into the open where it can be better monitored.
Yet the WHO seems undeterred. “Some traditional remedies will probably be found to be really active and really useful. Others will just be a placebo – for example, you feel better when you drink tea,” said Dr Reeder. The WHO argues that investing in traditional medicine could also help tackle the leading killers of the 21st century: non-communicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mental illness. Holistic approaches to wellness incorporating exercise, a more considered diet and stress reduction could complement conventional treatments, placing “an emphasis on prevention over cure,” said Dr Tedros…
This article explores how the sociological concept of trust, both externally and internally, presents challenges to the legitimacy and credibility of the chiropractic profession. This ethnographic study consisted of systematic observation and interviews of 40 chiropractors in South Carolina from Fall 2016 to Fall 2017. Additionally, interviews were conducted with staff members, patients, and other medical providers, such as physicians, physical therapists, massage therapists, and representatives from the insurance industry, about their understanding and experiences with chiropractic medicine. Phone interviews were also conducted with deans and provosts at seven chiropractic colleges around the country.
In total, over 100 interviews and informal conversations occurred during the course of the project. All identifiers of participants and chiropractic colleges in the study were removed to ensure anonymity. Instead, pseudonyms were created that were known only by the author of the study. Additionally, data from the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation was obtained to document changes in the number of chiropractors who are no longer in practice in the state between 2016 and 2017.
The data from this study suggests that there may be a number of trust issues between the public and chiropractors, between chiropractors and physicians, and among chiropractors themselves. For example, comments and observations from respondent interviews suggests many patients do not fully trust their provider. Additionally, physicians claim the reason for the lack of trust is due to the absence of any meaningful accountability measures to control rogue chiropractors and the wide variance in types of treatment they offer. Among chiropractors themselves, there appears to be an absence of trust, as many providers see their colleagues as competitors and potential threats.
Trust is a key component to the success of any social relationship. Given the inability or unwillingness of the chiropractic profession to hold members accountable for questionable practices, along with the perception that chiropractic treatments may not be effective, the public, patients, and the medical profession will likely continue to view chiropractic medicine with suspicion.
In the paper, the author (Robert Hartmann McNamara, Ph.D. Department of Criminal Justice ) makes several further valuable points:
- The need for autonomy is a critical component to understanding why so many providers are unwilling to allow their profession to be regulated. It also seems apparent that there is no collective conscience, no real sense of solidarity, and there remain questions about the trustworthiness of chiropractors by patients, the public, the medical community and even among chiropractors themselves.
- Chiropractors point to some level of persecution by insurance companies—indicating that others in medicine engage in inappropriate billing and fraud, but that insurance companies target chiropractors because of their limited ability to stand up to them. While there may be some truth to these criticisms, there is also evidence to indicate that the identification of chiropractors for audits may be justified. For example, in a 2016 report by the Office of Inspector General, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency responsible for overseeing health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, of all the providers who were cited for fraud, abuse, and errors in Medicare billing, chiropractors were overwhelmingly the largest set of offenders. In fact, the report showed that for 2013, an estimated $359 million in Medicare payments for chiropractic services did not comply with Medicare requirements. Thus, one of the primary reasons for the creation of Medicare accountability teams is because the data indicated that chiropractors are at the center of the problem when it comes to inaccurate and fraudulent billing for treatment.
- The sociological literature points out that the development and enhancement of trust is a crucial component to establishing and sustaining social relationships, and thereby creating a sense of solidarity and morality. To the extent that chiropractors can better foster the development of trust, they will likely earn the respect of their colleagues in medicine and not be seen in a negative light by the public or their patients. This is accomplished, of course, by setting reasonable expectations of what chiropractors can legitimately do and holding the members of the profession accountable in adhering to those standards.
All of this ties in well with many of my previous posts on chiropractic. I might therefore just add this:
What can you expect from a profession that was founded by one of the most infamous snake oil salesmen in US history?
This year’s ‘Christmas issue’ of the BMJ comes with a remarkable editorial. Please allow me to quote a few passages from it:
We live in a world of lies, damned lies, and AI hallucinations. A US publication calculated that Donald Trump told 30 573 lies during his first term as president. Trump is neither alone nor atypical—except that his rate of lying and the thickness of his brass neck may be unprecedented…
We live in the era of the Big Lie. The more powerful you are, the bigger the lie you can tell. Nobody holds you to account. We no longer call lies “lies”: they are alternative facts, different versions of the truth, and—in perhaps the most sinister twist—hallucinations. Our old fashioned, and possibly unfashionable, view … is that words and facts do matter…
… the term “hallucination” deserves greater scrutiny. An AI hallucination is a fabrication, a lie, a bullshit. Why does it earn such a soft name, which seeks to hide the failure or error rate of an AI tool? The answer inevitably lies in money. Tech guru and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow argues that tech companies’ primary interest is to convince investors and markets of their relentless growth. Hype about AI’s capabilities sells. Hallucinations cover its failures…
As we end the year of the Big Lie, what’s clear is that the world isn’t ruled by citizens. It never was. It’s no longer ruled by the great religions, although they may delude themselves that it is. Nor is it primarily ruled, hubris aside, by politicians or dictators. Without a doubt—and more clearly than ever before—the world bows to the power of the corporation. Hail the multinational, the conglomerate. All hail the tech bros. We live in their age of surveillance capitalism. There are many words for this unspoken calamity, but “hallucination” is regrettably not one of them.
Inspriewed by these words, I decided to list some of the biggest lies from the world of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) as they emerged during 2025. Here they are together with some ot the blog posts that disclosed them:
- HOMEOPATHY CURES CANCER Homeopathy as a therapy for cancer? A new review from India, Homeopathy in the Fight Against Breast Cancer: ANOTHER DEATH BY HOMEOPATHY, Finally! The long-awaited ‘retraction notice’ of the infamous study by Frass et al (on homeopathy for cancer) has been published
- TRADITIONAL USAGE GUARANTEES SAFETY Kampo-induced liver injury: A case report and a systematic review
- CHIROPRACTIC IS HARMLESS Katie May died after chiropractic manipulation – but that’s not the chiro’s fault, claims chiro Steven P. Brown, Death following chiropractic neck manipulation, a rare event?, “Horrifying truth about chiropractors and why paralysis, strokes and deaths are far more common than you’d imagine”, Chiropractic Manipulation: Two Months in Bed With Pain and a Herniated a Disc, nother stroke following chiropractic neck manipulation, “After seeing the chiropractor, I was seeing things and blacking out”, Chiropractic spinal manipulation: what harm can it cause?, Patient suffers spinal bleed after chiropractor visit, Acute Spinal Epidural Hematoma: A Serious Complication of Chiropractic Therapy
- HOMEOPATHY IS INCREASINGLY POPULAR Homeopathy continues its retreat in Germany, A change of mind: The German Green Party is now against the reimbursement of homeopathy
- THE GCC IS FIT FOR PURPOSE Following the death of a young woman, the UK General Chiropractic Council received a ‘Prevent Future Deaths’ report
- THE SCAM INDUSTRY IS BENIGN The “dark underbelly” of the alternative health industry
- VARIOUS FORMS OF ENERGY HEALING ARE EFFECTIVE Faith-healing: US parents were convicted of child-abuse and murder, Is Reiki effective for postmenopausal symptoms? No, I’m afraid not!, Non- Physical Beings Assisting in Reiki Sessions: is this the most impressive BS of the year?, Healing crystals: do they work beyond placebo? … Short answer: No, Distant Reiki for Health and Wellbeing of Dogs – WHAT IS NEXT?, Impact of ‘biofield energy’ treatment on broiler chicken growth performance, feed efficiency, carcass characteristics, and meat quality, Reiki for postmenopausal symptoms? No, thanks!, Qigong for Well-Being in Pregnancy?, A placebo-controlled, randomized trial confirms: REIKI IS BOGUS!
- HOMEOPATHY IS EVIDENCE-BASED The “SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE ON HOMEOPATHY”: does this amount to scientific misconduct?, The Mechanism of Action of Homeopathy! … Someone please inform the Nobel Prize Committee, The role of homeopathy in managing 50 common conditions, The (In)Effectiveness of Homeopathic Remedies in Treating Respiratory Infections, The absurdity of homeopathy, homeopaths and their arguments, Homeopathy for odontogenic infections?, A new study of agrohomeopathy – will it change the hitherto negative evidence?, Homoeopathy as a Complementary Approach to Migraine Management? No, thanks!, A Brazilian cow with cancer cured by homeopathy?, COMIC RELIEF: “The Principle of Homeopathy”, Homeopathy in chronic disease management: a “critical” review of the evidence, “Homeopathy addresses anemia’s complexities with finesse”
- SCAM IS ETHICAL Legal And Ethical Challenges of So-Called Alternative Medicine, Why homeopaths cannot possibly obtain informed consent from their patients, The Nuremberg Code: is it being followed by researchers of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM)?
- ACUPUNCTURE IS A PANACEA Acupuncture for the Management of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, The characteristics and essence of meridians and acupoints (or: How the ‘Flat Earth Society’ can demonstrate that our planet has the shape of a disc), Acupuncture for Patients With Major Depressive Disorder? No, definitely no!
In SCAM, we live indeed in the era of the Big Lie, and not just since 2025! I will continue to do my best in disclosing untruths and farauds in 2026 and [I hope] beyond.
Why?
Mainly because I want to prevent harm done to vulnerable patients.
Colic in infants causes excessive crying in an otherwise healthy and thriving baby. Colic is a common but poorly understood and often frustrating problem for caregivers. The objective of this trial was to study whether osteopathic treatments of infants with infantile colic / excessive crying (IC/EC) have an impact on the subjectively perceived psychological stress of caregivers compared to usual care.
The study was designed as a prospective, multicenter, randomized controlled trial. Infants aged 1 week to 3 months and who met Rome IV criteria for IC/EC were included. By means of external randomization, infants were allocated to an intervention group or a control group. Infants in the intervention group received three osteopathic treatments at intervals of one week. The treatments were custom-tailored and based on osteopathic principles. Controls received their osteopathic treatment after a 3 week untreated period. The primary outcome parameter was the assessment of parental psychological stress (three questions), measured using a numeric rating scale (NRS; 0-10). Furthermore, the average daily crying time (measured using the Likert scale), the crying intensity (measured using the NRS) and the parents’ self-confidence (measured using the Karitane Parenting Confidence Scale) were assessed.
A total of 103 infants (average age 39.4 ±19.2 days) were included, 52 in the intervention group and 51 in the control group. An inter-group comparison of changes revealed clinically relevant improvements in favor of the intervention group for the main outcome – parameter psychological stress – for all 3 questions (e.g., for question 2 respectively 3, NRS: between group difference of means 3.5; 95% CI: 2.6 to 4.4; p < 0.001). For the secondary outcome parameters of crying intensity and crying time/day, the changes were of similar magnitude.
The authors concluded that three osteopathic treatments given over a period of two weeks led to statistically significant and clinically relevant positive changes of parental psychological stress.
This is a cleverly designed study. I say ‘cleverly’ because the casual reader might not even notice that it compared osteopathic treatments with doing nothing. It is well-documented that just hadling babies with IC/EC has an effect on outcomes. Thus the positive effect may not have anything to do with osteopathy and be due simply to the extra attention given to the child. In other words, the positive result of the study was sure even before the 1st baby was entered into the trial.
I am impressed!
Perhaps this study should be in the textbook entitled:
HOW TO CHEAT WITH SEEMINGLY RIGOROUS CLINICAL TRIALS?
Saffron, the stigmas of Crocus sativus L., has been used extensively in traditional herbal medicine. Since several years, the research interest in this plant is intense. Thus numerous clinical trials of saffron supplements (in contrast to the spice, supplements are affordable [they use different parts of the plant]) have been published. Almost all of them yield positive results (this invariably makes me suspicious!).
The purpose of this 2-arm, 12-wk, parallel-group, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was to examine the effects of supplementation with a saffron extract (Affron) on mood and sleep in adults experiencing subclinical depressive symptoms. 202 adults aged 18-70 with depressive symptoms were supplemented with either 28 mg saffron daily or a placebo. Outcome measures included the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale – 21, Sleep Disturbance and Sleep-Related Impairment Scale, World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Scale, and daily depression, stress, and anxiety ratings.
On the primary outcome measure, compared to the placebo, saffron was associated with greater improvements in the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress scale – 21 depression score (β: -2.92 points; 95% confidence interval: -5.13, -0.71 points; Cohen’s d = 0.39). 72% of participants in the saffron group achieved a clinically significant change (a reduction of ≥ 7 points) compared to 54.3% of participants in the placebo group (P = 0.010). However, in the other secondary outcomes, there was no evidence of between-group differences. In exploratory analyses across various strata and assumptions, improvements in sleep disturbances (β: -2.72 points; 95% confidence interval: -4.99, -0.46 points; Cohen’s d = 0.44) were identified in a subset of participants with a greater severity of sleep disturbance. There were no serious adverse reactions reported.
The authors concluded that this study, the largest conducted to date on saffron, provides evidence supporting the beneficial effects of 3 mo of saffron supplementation on depressive symptoms in adults. Large placebo responses were evident in this study, which require consideration in future trials.
As mentioned above, the body of evidence suggesting that saffron is effective for a surprisingly wide range of conditions is impressive. I looked with some skepticism at some of these studies and have to say that many are of decent or even good scientific quality.
Could it be that we have in saffron a plant-based treatment that shows real promise?
WATCH THIS SPACE!
The alkaline diet is based on the disproven belief that shifting the body’s acidity levels can cure diseases or “detoxify” the body. It is often claimed to offer a cure for a range of conditions, e.g.:
- Cancer
- Heart disease
- Low energy levels
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Osteoarthritis
The diet is also promoted to prevent diseases such as:
- kidney stones,
- urinary tract infections.
Yet, none of these claims are supported by sound evidence. In fact, the diet is not just nonsense, it also is dangerous!
An Arizona couple is facing possible prison time after their parenting practices, shaped by online misinformation about medical care and nutrition, left their 5-month-old child dead and three other children suffering from chronic malnutrition. The couple followed the dangerous and debunked alkaline diet − and imposed it on their kids.
According to a 2024 poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, most Americans encounter false health information online, and many are unsure whether it is accurate. Nearly 70% of doctors polled said they think patient trust declined from 2020 to 2022. Therefore, it’s all the more crucial people understand how to distinguish fact from fiction when it comes to their health. Amongst other things, people should also make sure their health protocols and diets are not clouded by politics or ideology.
“Misinformation isn’t a point of view; it does actual harm,” commented Brian Castrucci, president of the de Beaumont Foundation. “It’s hurting physicians. It’s hurting medical practice. And it’s hurting the American public.”
The pattern of harm can be traced back to an extreme version of the “alkaline diet” which the couple imposed on their children. In addition, they combined this with a growing distrust of medical care. The couple told investigators they relied on online videos and posts that warned against vaccines, infant medical treatments and even common medicines such as Tylenol. Moreover, they also avoided taking the children to doctor visits, limiting outside contact.
The children’s diet entailed eating vegetables, fruit and plant-based milks − with almost no protein, fats or fortified foods crucial for overall health. The parents interpreted the children’s rapid weight loss as evidence the diet was working and removing toxins, rather than a sign of medical crisis. “We chose this diet for good health,” Stanley told the court.
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When I encounter stories like this, I almost despair of the ignorance and naivety of some people. Then I realize how important the job of fighting dangerous misinformation is
… and I continue my work with renewed enthusiasm.
