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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Wait! It’s not mercury in vaccines! It’s mercury from coal burning power plants that causes autism! I’m so confused…

Yet another dubious study has been making the rounds of mercury militia websites and discussion forums. The study is being played up and touted by certain very excitable and scientifically not-too-bright militia members and woo-meisters like Mike Adams as some sort of vindication of the scientifically discredited hypothesis that mercury in vaccines somehow causes autism. […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

The mercury militia isn’t going to like this very much…

…because Paul Offit’s written a book: AUTISM’S FALSE PROPHETS Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure Paul Offit, MD Columbia University Press September 2008 Genre: Non-Fiction/Medicine Format: Hardcover AUTISM’S FALSE PROPHETS will show the reader the incredible history of how greedy lawyers, doctors, and unknowing parents have helped prevent the search for […]

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Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking Surgery

Animal rights terrorism advocate Dr. Jerry Vlasak: Murder of animal researchers is “morally acceptable”

I may have joked a bit about certain surgeons whom, because they say such dumb, pseudoscientific things with alarming regularity, I consider embarrassments to the noble profession that is surgery. Usually, it’s been surgeons who reveal an astonishing ignorance of the science of evolution as they parrot long discredited and debunked canards about evolution while […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Relying on prayer instead of medicine, part II

About a month ago, I wrote about an unbelievably sad story of a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin who died of untreated diabetic ketoacidosis because she had been unfortunate enough to have been born into a family in which the parents believed in prayer rather than medicine. I say “unbelievably” because I find it truly difficult […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Thoughts on Dr. Rashid Buttar and the failure of state medical boards

One of the most contentious and difficult aspects of trying to improve medical care in this country is enforcing a minimal “standard of care.” Optimally, this standard of care should be based on science- and evidence-based medicine and act swiftly when a practitioner practices medicine that doesn’t meet even a minimal requirement for scientific studies […]