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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

One last example of crank magnetism for 2011

OK, I know I said that this morning’s post would likely be the last post of 2011, but then–wouldn’t you know it?–the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism had to go and post a post entitled AAPS on Vaccine Exemptions. I think it deserves a brief mention today for the simple reason that it’s a […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Dr. Burzynski and the cult of personality of the “brave maverick cancer doctor”

I thought I’d be leaving the topic of Dr. Stanislaw Burzysnki and his combination of Personalized Cancer Therapy for Dummies-level “personalized, gene-targeted cancer therapy” coupled with his “cancer-curing” antineoplastons, which have morphed into an orphan HDAC inhibitor used off-label as part of his pricey everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” combination of targeted therapies and old-fashioned chemotherapy. After all I […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics

“Misinformed consent” rears its ugly head in Pediatrics

I’ve written about the concept of “misinformed” consent with respect to the anti-vaccine movement. To summarize, “misinformed consent” is a perversion of the concept of informed consent in which cranks claim to be championing true informed consent (and, by implication, that opponents have not) when in fact they are presenting a scientifically unsupportable assessment of […]

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Evolution Medicine Politics Science

The politics of anti-science: Global warming, vaccines, GMOs, oh my!

I’ve gotten into quite a few arguments over whether there is more anti-science nonsense on the right or the left lately. Actually, none of these arguments have been on the blog, mainly because I tend not to relish getting into discussions that are far more weighted towards politics than actual science or medicine. Still, sometimes […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Quackery

Michelle Bachmann’s anti-vaccine statements cross the political pseudoscience divide

I don’t often blog about politics anymore. As I’ve said on more than one occasion, political bloggers are a dime a dozen. Rare is the one that interests me much. However, sometimes things happen that lead me to make an exception, except that this time it’s not really an exception because it has to do […]