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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience

Antivaccine activity on Twitter: It’s not entirely what you think

Twitter is a favorite place for antivaxers to promote their message. A recent study suggests how the antivaccine Twitter community has changed.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Antivaccine misinformation by Dr. W. Gifford-Jones in the Toronto Sun: Retracted (under pressure) but not forgotten

A week ago, The Toronto Sun published a syndicated column by a pseudonymous Canadian doctor, Dr. W. Gifford-Jones. The column was packed with antivaccine misinformation and pseudoscience. Apparently due to complaints, the article was taken down after an uproar, but is still available on the website of at least one other Canadian newspaper. How is it that a physician who writes such twaddle can be syndicated in over 70 newspapers?

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Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Integrative medicine as infiltrative pseudoscience: Pushback against quackery

For a quarter of a century, quackery and pseudoscience have been integrated into medicine through the construct of “integrative medicine” and into academic medicine in the form of quackademic medicine. Unfortunately, there has been little pushback. That’s why it’s good to see a recent article in The Surgeon decrying this phenomenon. We need more of this.

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Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Science versus “ancient ways of knowing”

Science is the most effective means of determining medical treatments that work and whose benefits outweigh their risks. Those who promote pseudoscientific or prescientific medicine, however, frequently appeal to other ways of knowing, often ancient ways of knowing from other cultures, and pointing out deficiencies in SBM to justify promoting their treatments. Do their justifications hold water?

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine

Homeopathic nosodes: A clinical trial of magic

As hard as it is for me to believe, I’ve been writing about homeopathy for more than a decade now. Regular readers, of course, know that homeopathy is quackery, utter pseudoscience based on prescientific vitalism based on two “laws”: the Law of Similars and the Law of Infinitesimals. The former states that, to relieve a […]