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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics

In which I disagree with Brian Deer on the issue of how to deal with scientific fraud

I admire Brian Deer. I really do. He’s put up with incredible amounts of abuse and gone to amazing lengths to unmask the vaccine quack Andrew Wakefield, the man whose fraudulent case series published in The Lancet thirteen years ago launched a thousand quack autism remedies and, worst of all, contributed to a scare over […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

JAMA actually gets it right regarding supplements

I just saw something I don’t see every day. Or every week. Or every month. Or even every year. I frequently complain about supplements on this blog. Well, not supplements per se but rather the double standard we have in this country when it comes to supplements. Basically, supplements are about as close to unregulated […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Politics Quackery Science

What is Francis Collins doing speaking to the Society for Integrative Oncology?

I saw this story on Friday and almost couldn’t wait the weekend to blog about it. However, since the conference that was brought to my attention isn’t until November, I ultimately decided that it would keep. At least until now. This story is about Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health. Unlike […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics

A canary in the coal mine? Or a bird pining for the fjords?

Why is it that so many bloggable items tend to pop up right before holidays? Whatever the reason, whether my perception that this is the case is accurate or simply the result of confirmation bias on my part, last Friday a little tidbit of popped up that seriously tempted me to blog about it. But […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Anti-vaccine warriors vs. research ethics, revisited

A couple of weeks ago, the anti-vaccine movement took a swing for the fences and, as usual, made a mighty whiff that produced a breeze easily felt in the bleachers. In brief, a crew of anti-vaccine lawyers named headed by Mary Holland, co-author of Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten […]