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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Sharyl Attkisson and CBS News: Lying by omission about the murder of autistic teen Alex Spourdalakis

The damaged done by the antivaccine movement is primarily in how it frightens parents out of vaccinating using classic denialist tactics of spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). Indeed, as has been pointed out many times before, antivaccinationists are often proud of their success in discouraging parents from vaccinating, with one leader of the antivaccine […]

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

Is Sharyl Attkisson feeling the heat over her irresponsible reporting of the Alex Spourdalakis case?

Yesterday, I did a bit of navel gazing about how cranks, quacks, and antivaccinationists have a penchant for attacking skeptics at work in order to try to intimidate them into silence. Reading the post over again, I realize that it came across perhaps more whiny than it should have, but I guess I was just […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Andrew Wakefield wants a “live public televised debate.” Oh, goody.

I want to thank Dan Olmsted, the editor of Age of Autism. I think. Why do I say this? After all, Olmsted is the managing editor of perhaps the most wretched hive of antivaccine scum and quackery that I am aware of. However, he’s actually done me a favor. You see, the other day, the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Exaggerating conflicts of interest to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines

Remember Gayle DeLong? Last summer, DeLong published a paper in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, entitled A Positive Association found between Autism Prevalence and Childhood Vaccination uptake across the U.S. Population. As I pointed out at the time, it showed nothing of the sort. Besides botching the introduction by citing a panoply of […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Medicine Quackery

Surprise, surprise! Andrew Wakefield was paid by lawyers to undermine the MMR vaccine

This should come as no surprise. Thanks to Brian Deer, the journalist who uncovered so much of Dr. Andew Wakefield’s shady research and dealings, we now know that Wakefield was paid by lawyers before his infamous MMR study and that he failed to disclose this clear conflict of interest: ANDREW WAKEFIELD, the former surgeon whose […]