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

Repeat after me: Enforcing medical and scientific standards is not “censorship”

I don’t mean to beat up on Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick. I really don’t. I realize I rather harshly criticized him yesterday for being so hostile to the concept of “denialism,” to the point where he characterized even the use of the term as a means of “suppressing” free speech. Normally, that criticism would have been […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Is the anti-vaccine movement fizzling?

After a week of some of the most amazing anti-vaccine craziness that I’ve seen in quite a while, a week that started with anti-vaccine hero Andrew Wakefield’s name being struck off the list of licensed medical practitioners in the U.K. During the entire week, there was (and is ongoing) an anti-vaccine crank conference known as […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

The SkepDoc reviews Callous Disregard

The week is coming to a close, and the Memorial Day holiday beckons for those of us in the U.S. I’ve spent most of this week blogging about the anti-vaccine movement, and I do need a rest. Next week, I promise to try to stay away from this issue as much as possible, not just […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Andrew Wakefield: Another one bites the dust…

First, it was anti-vaccine “martyr” Andrew Wakefield’s infamous 1998 Lancet paper. Then it was his equally incompetent 2009 NeuroToxicology paper. Now it’s Wakefield’s 2000 American Journal of Gastroenterology paper: Errata, Corrigenda and Retractions Am J Gastroenterol 2010; 105:1214; doi:10.1038/ajg.2010.149 Retraction: Enterocolitis in Children With Developmental Disorders A J Wakefield, A Anthony, S H Murch, M […]