Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

It’s so cute when anti-vaxers try to discuss epidemiology…

The anti-vaccine movement is nothing if not plastic. It “evolves” very rapidly in response to selective pressures applied to it in the form of science refuting its key beliefs. For instance, when multiple studies looking at the MMR vaccine and autism failed to confirm the myth that the MMR causes autism or “autistic enterocolitis,” most […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Bad, bad, bad autism advice in the Washington Post

I must admit that I’ve never heard of Margerite Kelly. Apparently she’s some sort of advice columnist for the Washington Post. Apparently she’s also fairly clueless, if her column from last Friday is any indication. At least, she’s clueless about autism. In her column Diagnosing Autism Is Never an Easy Process, she betrays a whole […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Still more evidence that infectious disease returns when vaccination rates fall

This time, the evidence comes from New Zealand: Notified measles cases so far this year are already seven times higher than the total number of measles cases last year. The reason? The third-lowest immunisation rate in the OECD, despite the fact immunisation is free and widely and readily available. Our immunisation rate is about 83 […]

Categories
Announcements Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

More ammunition against the anti-vaccine movement

Time and time again, I’ve had requests from readers for good resources for countering the nonsense emanating from the anti-vaccine movement. Time and time again, I’ve pointed out sites like Every Child By Two and The Vaccine Education Center. Now, thanks to the efforts of some friends of mine, especially Steve Novella, there is another […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine

Open letters with signatories: Will they help counter the antivaccine movement?

As a “prominent” (as hard as I find it that anyone would apply the word to me) blogger about the anti-vaccine movement, somehow I ended up on the Every Child By Two mailing list. ECBT, as you may recall, is the organization founded by former First Lady Rosalyn Carter and former First Lady of Arkansas […]