Featured Posts

Rapture party at Three Birds this Saturday Come celebrate the upcoming Apocalypse with us this Saturday at Three Birds Tavern. And, in the unlikely event that we are still corporeal here on this material plane come 6:01, either because the Rapture did not in fact occur, or...

Read more

PZ Myers on Science and Religion PZ Myers' very entertaining talk from the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne in 2010 recently became available....

Read more

Ray Comfort Makes My Teeth Hurt Ray Comfort being interviewed on Atheist Experience on local public access television in Austin, TX. (How do you manage to sound like a blithering idiot within a minute-and-a-half of being introduced?)

Read more

Pioneer Anomaly Solved? The Pioneer Anomaly is a long-standing mystery where the solar-system-escaping Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft have been experiencing a tiny, unexplained sunward acceleration over the course of their journey

Read more

BBC and the Milgram experiment A beautiful (if disturbing) set of videos illustrating the Milgram experiments. Particularly interesting was the complete lack of empathy visible in the 19-year-old's face (though many others followed just as far in the experiments)...

Read more

Local “Holistic” Clinic Causes Outbreak of Hepatitis C

March 19, 2010
By
In Complementary and Alternative Medicine

2

From the St. Petersburg Times:

A hepatitis C outbreak at a holistic medical clinic in Brandon was likely caused by the reuse of syringes on patients undergoing intravenous therapies, a state health official said Friday.
a
Eight patients of Wellness Works, at 1209 Lakeside Dr., tested positive last year for hepatitis C, a contagious liver disease that can last from a few weeks to a lifetime and can cause serious damage.

The disease was passed around, it seems, among patients being given chelation therapy. That’s disturbing, because chelation therapy has a very specific use, but it’s become a favorite of quack doctors of all stripes, usually in the name of “cleansing toxins.” I guess the quacks can get away with most of the time because it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t help either, but that’s usually not an issue for something to be something in the field of “holistic healing.” And I think this case just underscores the dangers of unscientific medicine. If your quack doctors are making up therapies that don’t work they’re probably not getting the fundamentals, like using clean needles, right either.

Comments (2)

Jeff Handy said on March 21, 2010

Perhaps the emphasis should be on “Ho” in Holistic. Maybe the toxins caused the aids virus. ;)

St. Pete Skeptics Society » Blog Archive » Head of Holistic Clinic Loses Her Radio Show said on April 01, 2010

[...] Local Holistic Clinic Causes Outbreak of Hepatitis… The disease was passed around, it seems, among patients being given chelation therapy. That's disturbing, because chelation therapy has a very specific use, but it's become a favorite of quack doctors of all stripes, usually in the… [...]

Write a comment

Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree