PaulOffit

Paul Offit Books

Do you Believe in Magic?

The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

Paul A. Offit, M.D. - Multco Hollywood 615.5 o328d 2013

• p1 42%/6000 hospitals offer some form of alternative therapies

• p2 Pfizer acquired Alacer megavitamins (Emergen-C)

• p3 M.D. wife Bonnie Fass-Offit

• p3 benign Cutaneous Blue Ne .vus syndrome mimics malignant melanoma, fools most dermatologists

• p4 loss of cartilage beneath kneecap, surgery and 1 year recovery
• p4 enlarged prostate, most men with prostate cancer die of something else first, while surgery is brutal

• p5 Chiropractic manipulations can lead to injuries, acupuncture to infection, some megavitamins increase cancer risk

• p7 Introduction: Saving Joey Hofbauer

• p7 laetrile

• p7 1977 Oct 5 neck lump in 7yo Joey Hofbauer, one swollen lymph gland
• p8 Cancer of lymph glands, radiation and chemotherapy 95% chance of recovery

• p11 laetrile "treatment" by psychologist Michael B. Schachter

• p13 after six months of unconventional treatments, Joey had 17 swollen lymph glands, liver damage (megadose vitamin A), possible cyanide poisoning

• p14 Laetrile Robert BradfordJohn Birch Society

• p15 William D. Kelley Clinic Mexico Steve McQueen (smoker, asbestos exposure in the marines) pleural mesothelioma died age 50

• p16 N Engl J Med 1977;296:1167-1168 May 19 (not 26) 1977, Laetrilomania

• p17 Judge rules alternatives adequate . p18 Joey dies 1980 July 10, McQueen dies 1980 Nov 7

• p18 Charles Moertel teams at Mayo, UCLA, Sloan-Kettering study 178 cancer patents on laetrile and high dose vitamins

  • no stabilization or improvement, median survival 4.8 moths, "... not justified", FDA bans laetrile in 1987

• p21 Fringe group National Health Federation criticised by American Cancer Society and Quackwatch

• p25 Ch 1 Recovering the Past: Mehmet Oz and His Superstars

• p25 Mehmet Oz Dr. Oz Show

• p28 Hippocrates 400 BC humors acupuncture chi

• p29 Benjamin Rush bloodletting hastened death of George Washington (with Epiglottitis) and Benjamin Franklin

• p30 Edward Jenner 1796 smallpox vaccine

• p30-31 John Snow cholera Robert Koch anthrax Alexander Fleming penicillin Oswald Avery DNA James Lind scurvy

• p32 Albert Szent-Györgyi vitamin C

• p32 Dr. Oz faith healer Issam Nemeh patient Cathy with worrisome lung CT, miraculously cured "cancer" (but no biopsy), probably infection

• p33 George Bernard Shaw regards Lourdes: "All those canes, braces and crutches, and not a single glass eye, wooden leg, or toupee

• p33 Pamela Miles theraputic touch

• p34 9yo Emily Rosa debunks therapeutic touch, published in JAMA

• p35 John Edward psychic

• p36 James Randi says strategies are hot reading and cold reading

• p37 Oz's superstars of Alternative Medicine, Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra

• p39 Samuel Hahnemann 1790 homeopathy and Daniel David Palmer 1896 chiropractic manipulation

• p40 Oz offers instruction book for life, personalized ancient wisdom

• p41 "2012" catastrophe movie (2009) promotes "ancient wisdom"

• p41 orthodox medicine constantly changing (learning) while alternative medicine same over hundreds of years
• p42 mainland China only 18% rely in alternative medicines, acupuncture almost solely by the rural poor

• p42 Hippocratic Oaths : Medicine and Its Discontents by Raymond Tallis

• p42 Snake Oil And Other Preoccupations by John Diamond

• p47 Ch 2 The Vitamin Craze: Linus Pauling's Ironic Legacy

• 13 vitamins

• 9 soluble:B₁ thiamine B₂ riboflavin B₃ niacin, nicotinic acid B₄ adenine B₅ pantothenic acid B₆ pyrodoxine B₇ biotin B₈ inositol B₉ folic acid B₁₀ PABA paramonobenzoic acid B₁₁ salicylic acid B₁₂ cobalamin C ascorbic acid

• 4 insoluble:A retinol D calciferol E tocopherol K phylloquinone

• p48 2011 UMinn women taking multivitamins die at higher rates

• p48 2011 Cleveland Clinic men taking vitamin E risk prostate cancer

• p48 Seven previous studies show vitamins risk cancer, heart disease, and shortened lives [Citation needed]
  • are these associational or double-blind-trial causal? Perhaps people at higher risk are motivated to take vitamins

• p65 Ch 3 The Supplement Industry Gets a Free Pass: Neutering the FDA

• p94 Ch 4 Fifty-One Thousand New Supplements: Which Ones Work?

• p111 Ch 5 Menopause and Aging: Suzanne Somers Weighs In

• p128 Ch 6 Autism's Pied Piper: Jenny McCarthy!'s Crusade

• p140 Ch 7 Chronic Lyme Disease: The Blumenthal Affair

• p163 Ch 8 Curing Cancer: Steve Jobs, Shark Cartilage, Coffee Enemas, and More

• p173 Ch 9 Sick Children, Desperate Parents: Stanislaw Burzynski's Urine Cure

• p197 Ch 10 Magic Potions in the Twenty-First Century: Rashid Buttar and the Lure of Personality

• p223 Ch 11 The Remarkably Powerful, Highly Underrated Placebo Response

• p241 Ch 12 When Alternate Medicine Becomes Quackery

• p253 Epilogue: Albert Schweitzer and the Witch Doctor: A Parable