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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The American Academy of Pediatrics versus antivaccinationist hypocrisy

Three weeks ago, I wrote about some truly irresponsible antivaccination propaganda masquerading as entertainment that aired in the form of a television show called Eli Stone. This show, which portrayed its hero taking on the case of an autistic boy whose mother blamed his autism on thimerosal (going under the fictional name “mercuritol”) in vaccines […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

A different kind of “research” aggregator

Dave Munger has done the science blogosphere a service by spearheading the effort to highlight and aggregate serious posts about peer-reviewed research through his Research Blogging aggregator website and his Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting blog. It’s a great idea and a great source for what science and medical bloggers say about the latest published […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Essential reading: Why prior probability is important in considering the results of clinical trials of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine”

I’ve become known as an advocate for evidence-based medicine (EBM) in the three years since I started this little bit of ego gratification known as Respectful Insolence™. One thing this exercise has taught me that I might never have learned before (and that I’ve only reluctantly begun to accept as true) is one huge problem […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Cellular Feng Shui?

Balance. It’s what the woo-meisters who believe in “Feng Shui” tell us that it will bring to those who use its principles to arrange the objects in their life, be they furniture, homes, the design of buildings, or even the layouts of whole cities. Indeed, Feng Shui tells us that the way we arrange objects […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Computers and social media Medicine Quackery

Breast cancer information on the Internet

It figures again. I go a few days without Internet access again, and not only does Generation Rescue take out a full page antivaccination ad full of stupidity in USA Today, which I couldn’t resist opening both barrels on earlier, but a study’s lead senior author is someone I know (albeit not well) about three […]