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

Antivaccinationist activism versus measles in the U.S.: Are the chickens coming home to roost?

Over the last few years, depressingly, we’ve witnessed a rise in antivaccinationist activism. Beginning with the highly unethical activities of Andrew Wakefield and his bogus study in 1998 that set off a scare over the MMR vaccine supposedly causing autism that led to declining vaccination rates and skyrocketing measles and mumps rates in the U.K., […]

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Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking Surgery

Animal rights terrorism advocate Dr. Jerry Vlasak: Murder of animal researchers is “morally acceptable”

I may have joked a bit about certain surgeons whom, because they say such dumb, pseudoscientific things with alarming regularity, I consider embarrassments to the noble profession that is surgery. Usually, it’s been surgeons who reveal an astonishing ignorance of the science of evolution as they parrot long discredited and debunked canards about evolution while […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Thoughts on Dr. Rashid Buttar and the failure of state medical boards

One of the most contentious and difficult aspects of trying to improve medical care in this country is enforcing a minimal “standard of care.” Optimally, this standard of care should be based on science- and evidence-based medicine and act swiftly when a practitioner practices medicine that doesn’t meet even a minimal requirement for scientific studies […]

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Anti-Semitism History Holocaust Intelligent design/creationism Politics Skepticism/critical thinking World War II

What would Ben Stein say about this?

Yesterday, I wrote about what I thought to be a fairly amusing story. It was the story of one hapless candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress in a district in northwest Indiana whose excuses for giving a talk to the American National Socialist Workers Party’s Chicago celebration of Adolf Hitler’s 119th birthday last weekend […]

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Anti-Semitism History Politics

Stupid, stupid burning brightly, or how not to win an election

Ed happened to beat me to this one, which I saw on Orcinus. If you want a lesson on what not to do to get elected, here it is, courtesy of Tony Zirkle, candidate for the Republican nomination to run for a seat in his House district in northwest Indiana: Don’t show up at a […]