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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Clinical trials Medicine

Recall bias, vaccines, and illness

In the eyes, of anti-vaccine advocates, vaccines bear the brunt of blame for a variety of conditions, including autism, asthma, neurodevelopmental disorders, autoimmune disorders and a wide variety others. Often this link is based on retrospective data, in which parents or patients recall and self-report how many vaccines they’ve had and which ones. This self-recall […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Paranormal Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Generation woo

I realize that I’ve been mighty hard on Jenny McCarthy these last several months. I’ve made fun of her for her idiocy, her arrogance of ignorance, and her antivaccination lunacy, not to mention her utter ignorance of science, and, yes, I’ve been rather vicious at times. However, she richly deserved it. Indeed, I argue that […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

“The Autism Myth Lives On”

It’s rare that the mainstream media gets it right about vaccines and autism, and when they do I feel obligated to point it out. Such is the case with Sam Wang’s article The Autism Myth Lives On. It’s well worth reading, even though it’s a couple of months old. (How I missed it when it […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Sanctioned!

Remember the case of Clifford Shoemaker, lawyer for the antivaccinationist mercury militia who tried to subpoena Kathleen Seidel under incredibly dubious legal reasoning in order to harass and intimidate her? Remember how the subpoena was quashed? One word: Sanctioned! Woo-hoo! Quoth Judge James R. Muirhead: Clifford J. Shoemaker’s action is an abuse of legal process, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

EpiWonk shoots and scores: Kirby admits his error

I could resist a brief mention of this. Remember yesterday’s post, when I discussed how EpiWonk had deconstructed and demolished David Kirby’s latest mangling of epidemiology and willful misreading of government reports? Apparently it had an effect. It would appear that Mr. Kirby may actually have read it and taken it to heart. (Either that, […]