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Antivaccine nonsense Politics

Should thimerosal-containing vaccines be banned worldwide?

One of the oldest topics I’ve dealt with on this blog, a topic that I’ve been writing about on and off (unfortunately, mostly on) about the antivaccine movement. Ever since I first discovered about a decade ago that, yes, there are people ignorant enough about science and medicine that they actually think that vaccines are […]

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Medicine Politics

Big pharma wins a battle on off-label prescribing

There’s a phenomenon known as off-label prescribing. Basically, to prescribe something off-label is to prescribe it for an indication that is not FDA-approved but that is supported by considerable evidence. For example, it could involve using an FDA-approved drug for an indication that is not within its approval, for an unapproved age range (such as […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Quackery

Representative Dan Burton’s last antivaccine hurrah is scheduled for November 29

Whenever I blog about atrocities against science like the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), I’m frequently asked how just such an edifice designed to promote pseudoscience could have come to be as a full-fledged center in the National Institutes of Health. The answer is simple and boils down to woo-loving legislators. In […]

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

“Moneyball,” politics, and science-based medicine

Regular readers probably know that I’m into more than just science, skepticism, and promoting science-based medicine (SBM). (If they’re regular readers of my other, not-so-super-secret other project, they might also realize that they’ve seen this post before elsewhere. I had to stay out late for a work-related event and decided to tart it up and […]

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Medicine Politics Skepticism/critical thinking

The mistake of criminalizing honest scientific mistakes

Given how many bloggers have already weighed in on the story of an Italian court convicting geologists of manslaughter for failing to issue adequate earthquake warnings before an earthquake that devastated the town of L’Aquila, including Steve Novella, Daniela at Skepchicks, Sharon Hill at Skeptic, and even Instapundit, you’d think that even Orac wouldn’t have […]