Month: January 2017

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Holocaust denial Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking World War II

Holocaust denial from the White House on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

I always wondered how low Donald Trump could go. Now I know. Only I fear this is nowhere near the bottom.

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Is there a reproducibility “crisis” in biomedical research? (2017 edition)

About a week ago, I happened upon a number of stories about a study and project that demonstrates a key difference between science and pseudoscience. They had titles like, “Rigorous replication effort succeeds for just two of five cancer papers” (Science), “Cancer reproducibility project releases first results: An open-science effort to replicate dozens of cancer-biology […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

Quackery at the VA: Our veterans deserve real medicine, not fake medicine

A reader recounts his tale of being referred for fake medicine at a VA facility. Unfortunately, the VA seems to be papering over its lack of resources in the same way that Chairman Mao did in the 1950s, by “integrating” fake medicine with real medicine.

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Alternative Fake medicine endangers another cancer patient’s life

Another young life, endangered by fake medicine.

Kellyanne Conaway inadvertently gave us one of the most descriptive terms ever: Alternative facts. Alternative medicine is a lot like alternative facts in that it is unmoored from reality. Like alternative facts, it can also kill.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Another reminder that there is no autism epidemic

One of the core beliefs of the antivaccine movement is that there is an “autism epidemic.” The observation that autism prevalence has been climbing for the last two to three decades led some parents with autistic children to look for a cause, specifically an environmental cause, for autism. Because several vaccines are given in the […]