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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture

“Genetically modified” vaccines and GMOs: Sapping and impurifying all our precious bodily fluids?

About a week ago, I wrote one of my usual meandering posts in which I pointed out the similarities between two different anti-science movements. On the one hand, there are anti-vaccinationists, who fetishize the naturalistic fallacy (i.e., the belief that anything “natural” is better and that anything human made or altered by science is dangerous) […]

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Biology Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Overselling preclinical results

As part of my ongoing effort to make sure that I never run out of blogging material, I subscribe to a number of quack e-mail newsletters. In fact, sometimes I think I’ve probably overdone it. Every day, I get several notices and pleas from various wretched hives of scum and quackery, such as NaturalNews.com, Mercola.com, […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Can we finally just say that acupuncture is nothing more than an elaborate placebo? Can we? (2012 edition)

I sense a disturbance in the skeptical blogosphere. It is something that I half-expected, but, even so, it nonetheless somewhat surprised me when it arrived in the form of comments on my blog and e-mails from readers, fellow supporters of science-based medicine, and others asking me what I thought. In a way, it makes me […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

More data on why people reject science

Although I focus mostly on medical topics, such as vaccines, alternative medicine, and cancer quackery, I don’t limit myself to such topics. True, I used to write a lot more about evolution and creationism, the paranormal, and other standard skeptical topics, but over the last couple of years I’ve realized where my strength is and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Andrew Wakefield appeals?

On the antivaccine front, this year began with antivaccine hero Andrew Wakefield filing suit against investigative reporter Brian Deer, the BMJ, and Fiona Godlee (the editor of BMJ) for libel based on a series that Deer published in the BMJ outlining the evidence for Wakefield’s scientific fraud in his (in)famous 1998 Lancet case series. This […]