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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Quackery

The conspiracy circle is complete: Brian Hooker claims “The Man” has gotten to the “CDC whistleblower”

There is a disturbance in the antivaccine Force. I can sense it. Actually, it doesn’t take any special talent to detect this. You don’t have to be some sort of pro-science Jedi. The evidence is everywhere. The most prominent examples of posts in the antivaccine crankosphere that tipped me off are on—of course!—the antivaccine propaganda […]

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

The CDC whistleblower data dump redux: Even William Thompson appears not to believe the antivaccine spin

Yesterday was kind of busy and a long day in the operating room rather drained me. So I only had time for a quick followup to yesterday’s post on how Matt Carey obtained the entire document dump that the “CDC whistleblower” William W. Thompson gave to Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), who then gave it to […]

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

The CDC whistleblower documents: A whole lot of nothing and no conspiracy to hide an MMR-autism link

One of the stories dominating my blogging in 2015 was a manufactroversy that started in August 2014 when, after several months of rumbling in the antivaccine crankosphere that there was a CDC scientist ready to blow the whistle on an alleged coverup of evidence that vaccines cause autism, Andrew Wakefield, ever the publicity hog, released […]

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

Ben Swann’s long-awaited report on the “CDC whistleblower” goes over like a lead balloon of antivaccine misinformation

Ben Swann, anchor of the evening news for the local Atlanta CBS affiliate and the face of his Truth In Media series of videos, thinks himself an investigative journalist and a truth teller, but much of what I see him reporting more closely resembles reporting as though done by a cross between Ted Baxter, Ron […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Popular culture Science

Why do cranks favor ad hominem attacks over scientific arguments? They work!

Cranks, quacks, and pseudoscientists favor ad hominem attacks against scientists over arguments based in science. Unfortunately, new research suggests that ad hominem attacks against scientists making a scientific claim can be as effective as attacks based on science and evidence.