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Antivaccine nonsense Politics

Governor Jerry Brown signs California Bill AB 2109, but tries to water it down in a sop to religion

I’ve been blogging a lot about California Bill AB 2109. Basically, it’s a bill that was proposed as a means of addressing the increasing problem of non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates because religious and philosophical exemptions are too easy to obtain. Boiled down to its essence, AB 2109 would require parents to see a […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

Dr. Bob Sears vs. Seth Mnookin: Measles outbreaks, AB 2109, and lacking the courage of one’s convictions

It would appear that Dr. Bob Sears, author of The Vaccine Book, is in the news again. Specifically, he’s brought himself back into the spotlight by publishing in that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post, a fallacy-filled attack on a bill in California, AB 2109, designed to tighten up the process for […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Another defense of the antivaccine propaganda “documentary” The Greater Good from the San Ramon Valley Unified School District

San Ramon, we have a problem. The other day, I laid some not-so-Respectful Insolence on a clueless school board president in San Ramon Valley, California, named Greg Marvel. What merited a heapin’ helpin’ of what Orac does so well was Marvel’s use of school board stationery to endorse a stinking, steaming turd of a movie […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Update on California bill AB 2109: It moves on despite the antivaccine movement

It just occurred to me that, even though there was news about it, I never mentioned what’s happened recently with respect to California bill AB2109. As you might recall, I wrote about this bill about four weeks ago. In brief, this bill, if passed into law, would require that California parents seeking a “personal belief” […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Medicine

Suspicion of vaccines among those who should know better

I realize I repeat this a lot, but it bears repeating a lot. Vaccines are, without a doubt, one of the greatest advances in health care devised by the human mind. Arguably, vaccination campaigns have saved more lives and prevented more suffering and death than pretty much any other medical preventative intervention ever invented. I […]