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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery Television

An actual pro-vaccine storyline? On ABC?

I don’t watch Private Practice. I didn’t like Grey’s Anatomy, which, every time I caught part of it, struck me as the cheesiest sort of medical soap opera, a General Hospital transplanted to prime time. Given that Private Practice is a spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy, I never saw any reason whatsoever to watch. However, on […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

Tom Daschle on vaccination: “I can’t imagine that we could do any better than ensure that every — every child is immunized”

During the confirmation hearings yesterday for Tom Daschle, who is to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services, there was this exchange: J. REED: As you grapple with health care reform, you’re also grappling with the budget, so good luck on both matters. But if you could pay particular attention to Title VII, that […]

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Humor Politics

Why not bail out the porn industry?

As much of a completely disgusting sleazebag as I think he is, at some level I grudgingly have to admire Larry Flynt. He never misses an opportunity for self-promotion and annoying the hell out of politicians, and he’s back now, promoting himself and annoying the hell out of politicians. This time, he’s asking for a […]

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Anti-Semitism History Holocaust Holocaust denial Politics

Is the Holocaust “revisionism” movement no more?

This blog is primarily about medicine, the scientific basis of medicine, and general skepticism and critical thinking. As part of my interest in skepticism, a particular form of pseudoscience and pseudohistory that I first took an interest in about a decade ago, namely Holocaust “revisionism,” which is, of course, in reality Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

HIV/AIDS denialism, the Ministry of Truth, and the failure of memory holes in the Internet Age

One of my favorite novels of all time is George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. When it came to imagining the end to which totalitarianism could take us, no one before or since has written a more compelling book about living under such a regime. One aspect of Oceania, the fictional totalitarian state ruled […]