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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Television

Bill Maher doubles down on his antivaccine misinformation…again

I really don’t want Mondays to be come “let’s refute and make fun of the conspiratorial antivaccine nonsense Bill Maher said on his show Friday night.” I really don’t. However, I figured that I might have to devote Monday to that one more time this week after Maher really let his antivaccine freak flag fly […]

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

The annals of “I’m not anti-vaccine,” part 13: Nobody wants to admit to being “antivaccine”

Sometimes, in order to understand advocates of pseudoscience, such as antivaccinationists, it’s a useful exercise to look at their most extreme elements. Admittedly, in focusing on such loons, one does take the risk of generalizing the nuts to everyone a bit much, but on the other hand I’ve often found that the extremists are basically […]

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

After five years, Bill Maher lets his antivaccine freak flag fly again

Note added 2/10/2015: I’ve posted a followup in response to the skeptics who defend Bill Maher. A couple of weeks ago, I noted the return of the antivaccine wingnut side of Bill Maher, after a (relative) absence of several years, dating back, most likely, to the thorough spanking he endured for spouting off his antivaccine […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery Television

Antivaccine cardiologist Jack Wolfson and the resurrection of false balance about vaccines

Yesterday, I wrote about false balance in reporting on vaccines in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak. For those who’ve never encountered this blog, what I mean by false balance is when journalists, in a misguided belief that there are “two sides” (i.e., an actual scientific controversy) about the safety of childhood vaccines and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Television

False balance about vaccines rises from the grave…again

Imagine, if you will, a time machine capsule going all the way back to the earliest days of this blog, back in 2005 and 2006. Now consider the antivaccine movement, which somehow I became very interested in very early, an interest that continues to this day. Do you remember one theme that I kept hitting […]