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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine

A simultaneously sympathetic and unsympathetic commentary on an antivaccine screed

The false idea that vaccines somehow cause or contribute to autism has been a common theme on this blog, and I’ve spent considerable verbiage discussing why anyone would think that vaccines are in any way associated with autism when the science is quite clear that they are not. If there’s one thing I’ve been consistent […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Stanislaw Burzynski: On the arrogance of ignorance about cancer and targeted therapies

Here we go again. Because he’s been in the news lately, I’ve been writing a lot about the “brave maverick doctor” known as Stanislaw Burzynski who claims to have spectacular results treating normally incurable cancers using something he calls antineoplastons. Unfortunately, the reason Burzynski has featured prominently in the skeptical blogosphere over the last two […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

The mummer’s farce that was the Congressional autism hearing last week

Last Wednesday, I took note of an “old friend” and (thankfully) soon-to-be ex-Representative from Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, organized quackery’s best friend in the U.S. House of Representatives, Dan Burton. Specifically, I noted that Rep. Burton appeared to be having his one last antivaccine hurrah in the form of a hearing about the “autism epidemic” […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Crank spin versus science on mammography

Sometimes when a study comes out that I’m very interested in blogging about, I don’t get around to it right away. In the blogging biz, this sort of delay is often considered a bad thing, because blogging tends to be very immediate, about being the firstest with the mostest, and the moment to strike and […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine

A response to the father of a Burzynski patient

If there’s one thing that’s difficult about writing about Stanislaw Burzynski, his highly dubious (nay, bogus) antineoplaston cancer therapy, his “personalized gene-targeted cancer therapy for dummies,” and his shameless rebranding of an orphan drug as a miracle cure for cancer, it’s trying to balance a righteous anger at what he does to desperate cancer patients […]