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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Vaccine scientist and advocate Dr. Paul Offit receives a much-deserved award

With the weekend so busy that the cracks were starting to show in Orac’s blogging activity, Orac nearly missed posting. Fortunately, he learned that Dr. Paul Offit received the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal for his vaccine science and advocacy. Orac is, of course, more than happy to congratulate him.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Jennifer Margulis: Another rising star in the antivaccine movement

I’ve mentioned Dr. Paul Thomas before as a rising star in the antivaccine movement. A month and a half later, it occurs to me that I haven’t given proper due to his co-author, Jennifer Margulis, as an equally prominent rising star in the same crank movement. Here, I rectify that oversight.

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Medicine Physics Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The previously undiscovered organ known as the “interstitium” revisited: The Deepak Chopra connection

Yesterday, Orac discussed a widely hyped new scientific finding of a “new organ” known as the interstitium, , in which the Neil Theise and his co-authors suggested that their findings might “explain” acupuncture. Today, Orac realizes that the woo goes much, much deeper. Deepak Chopra, anyone?

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

#SaidNoMother: Combining dehumanization of autistic people with antivaccine pseudoscience in time for Autism Awareness Month

Autism Awareness Month is nearly upon us again. Unfortunately, the antivaccine movement has found a new way to ruin it by hijacking autism awareness to promote their antivaccine pseudoscience and quackery, along with contempt for autistic people. Behold #SaidNoMother and #SaidNoFather.

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Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The World Health Organization: Integrating quackery into the ICD-11

ICD-10 is a standardized system of alphanumeric codes for diagnoses maintained by the World Health Organization used throughout the world for billing, epidemiology, research, and cataloging causes of death. Its successor, ICD-11, is nearing completion, and unfortunately appears to be taking the “integration” of traditional medicine to a whole new level by integrating quack diagnoses with real diagnoses.