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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Science

How engaged should scientists be in policy?

I really hate this. I really hate having to take a friend to task, but he leaves me little choice. You see, I actually like Chris Mooney. Back in the day, I even even hoisted a pint with him at the Toledo Lounge in D.C., round about the time of the commencement of the whole […]

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Humor Medicine Science

The way science is reported…

Many are the times when I’ve complained about how the press reports on science and medicine. I love it when science is reported well, but sadly such examples are far fewer than I’d like to see. In fact, there are times when I feel as though I’m living this in an alternate universe where it’s […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Pumping autistic children full of an industrial chelator (revisited)

Remember Boyd Haley? He’s the Professor and former Chairman of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky whose formerly respectable career tanked because he fell into pseudoscience. For whatever reason, a while back he became enamored first of dental amalgam quackery to the point where he became involved in organizations like Consumers for […]

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Clinical trials Medicine

Don’t get sick in July? (Revisited)

June is almost over. If you work in an academic medical center, as I do, that can mean only one thing. The new interns are coming, and existing residents will soon be advancing to the next level. The joy! The excitement! The trepidation! And it’s not all just the senior residents and the faculty feeling […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

A horrifying breast cancer “testimonial” for “holistic” treatment, part 3

(NOTE ADDED 12/7/2010: Kim Tinkham has died of what was almost certainly metastatic breast cancer. Also note that, when it was publicized on the Internet and on the blogosphere that Tinkham’s cancer gave every indication of having recurred and she was dying, her “practitioner” Robert O. Young removed the videos embedded below from YouTube.) Remember […]