Can you imagine the movies we'd be watching if someone bothered to show the real story of America? Sweeney Todd, anyone?

"At Dartmouth, the medical college—it would be unfair to say that the medical college begins with this moment, but the teaching of science in Hanover begins when the physician to the president, the founder of Dartmouth, Eleazar Wheelock, drags the body of an enslaved black man, who is deceased, named Cato, to the back of his house and boils that body in an enormous pot to free up the skeleton, to wire it up for instruction. That act is not unusual."

What Americans don't know is more fascinating than what we do,...

 

Whoo-hoo - it's the lit now:

"Twirling toothpick tips against the skin 'works' just as well or better than 'real' acupuncture. To top it all off, acupuncture and “traditional Chinese medicine” as we know it today were basically reinventions of Chinese folk medicine promoted by Chairman Mao to his people beginning a few years after World War II because his Communist regime couldn’t provide enough 'Western' doctors to supply the health care needs of the Chinese." 

 Repeat as needed,..

 

You'll have to pardon me if, I think, she should've been fired:

"Sobbing GP banned over affair with husband of dead patient and told to reflect on her 'entirely selfish' behaviour"

“A study by the Rand research institute released in May found that fewer than half of employees at offices with wellness programs undergo clinical screenings and assessments, and less than than 20 percent take part in either weight loss or smoking cessation programs.

Employees who did head to the nearest gym or Prancercise track at their employer’s behest did lose weight—but only about a pound a year over the course of three years, Rand found. Those lackluster findings were bolstered by another study from the University of California, which showed that 'participating in work-based wellness programs does not lower blood pressure, blood sugar, or cholesterol and rarely leads to weight loss,' Reuters reported. And just 2 percent of the employers Rand surveyed had reported measurable cost savings through the programs.”

I’ve really come to detest Dr. Mehmet Oz.

You remember Dr. Mehmet Oz, don’t you? How can you escape him? He is, after all, Oprah Winfrey’s protege, and of late he’s really been living up (or down) to the example set by his television mentor, who of late apparently thinks nothing of promoting faith healing quack John of God on her show. Following in the footsteps of his much more famous and well-known mentor, this season on his television show, The Dr. Oz Show, Dr. Oz has in some ways imitated Oprah and in some ways gone her one better (one worse, really) in promoting the Oprah-fication of medicine. And this season has been a particularly bad one for science-based medicine on The Dr. Oz Show. Apparently Dr. Oz felt that he had to surpass what he did last season, which included inviting a man whom I consider to be one of the foremost sellers of quackery on the Internet, Dr. Joseph Mercola. Prior to that, Dr. Oz had done an episode touting the glories of that form of faith healing known as reiki. In between, he made appearances at various panels of woo-friendly physicians trying to coopt President Obama’s health insurance reform initiative to cover more “holistic” care (i.e., “integrative medicine”).

Everybody stay calm, alright? Me and the good doctor will do all the freaking out for everybody:

  "Homeopaths truly live on a different planet, a planet where belief is everything and responsibility is an alien concept. I certainly hope that they will not take over planet earth in a hurry. If I imagine a world where homeopaths dominate primary care in the way it is suggested in this article, I start having nightmares. It seems to me that people who harbour ideas of this type are not just deluded to the point of madness but they are a danger to public health."

I can attest to that:

My own nightmares are just subsiding after 7 years,..