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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Brian Deer strikes again: More evidence of the worthlessness of Andrew Wakefield’s “research”

I had been wondering why the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism had been gearing up the slime machine against Brian Deer lately. For example, former UPI reporter turned vaccine/autism cran Dan Olmsted has been attacking the BMJ. As you recall, the BMGpublished Brian Deer’s latest revelations earlier this year when he quite pithily and […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics

“Misinformed consent” rears its ugly head in Pediatrics

I’ve written about the concept of “misinformed” consent with respect to the anti-vaccine movement. To summarize, “misinformed consent” is a perversion of the concept of informed consent in which cranks claim to be championing true informed consent (and, by implication, that opponents have not) when in fact they are presenting a scientifically unsupportable assessment of […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Science

Chuck Norris outdoes Jenny McCarthy on vaccines

Believe it or not, sometimes I rather miss Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey. Although McCarthy is still nominally the head of the anti-vaccine group Generation Rescue, she’s really faded to a rather low profile over the last year or so. Indeed, the last time I even remember her spouting off about vaccines was way back […]

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Paranormal Physics Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Shhhh, be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting ghosts…

Ever since starting my blog nearly seven (!) years ago, I’ve concentrated mainly on skepticism in medicine, in particular examining various implausible medical claims that proliferate on the Internet and in our media like so much kudzu choking out science and reason. The reasons are two-fold. First, it’s what I’m interested in. Second, it was […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

“Pox packages,” child abuse, and the violation of federal law

Fridays are usually a bad time for blogging for me, but it’s a choice, not due to any circumstances. Usually, on Friday nights, I consciously make an effort to stay away from the computer and the blog. Frequently, I’m tired, and not infrequently I’ll crash on the couch, only to wake up after midnight and […]