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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The anti-vaccine movement: Is it too late for scientists to bridge the gap between evidence and fear?

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s paper in Pediatrics showing that vaccine refusal elevates the risk of pertussis in a child by nearly 23-fold, a commentary in PLoS Biology asks what can be done to combat anti-vaccine misinformation. Entitled A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine-Autism Wars, it’s an interview with a professor of medical […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine History Hitler Zombie Humor Medicine Quackery

From a crypt in Berlin, it returns to decimate the anti-vaccine movement

SETTING: A NONDESCRIPT CLINIC IN AUSTIN, TEXAS TIME: AFTER DARK It had been a long, hard day at the clinic. The man trudged to the back of the building and plopped himself down on a large, cushy leather office chair, causing it to spin around. He was fiftyish, but still boyish in appearance, possessed of […]

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

Help vaccinate Las Vegas!

If there’s one thing that I’ve found that’s simultaneously gratifying and somewhat infuriating over the last year or so, it’s that the skeptical movement has finally really noticed that anti-vaccination movement in a big way. Those of us who’ve been on the blogospheric front lines for the last few years have sometimes been frustrated that […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

No one can shoot himself in the foot like anti-vaccine hero Andrew Wakefield

Blogging is usually such an instant gratification sort of thing. I see a story or hear about something. I write about it. I almost have to. Most stories in the blogosphere have a really short half-life anyway. Wait more than a day or two, and no one cares anymore. Hell, wait more than a few […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The martyrdom of St. Andy, part 2: David Kirby rides to the rescue (sort of)

If I am wrong I will be a bad person because I will have raised this spectre. Andrew Wakefield, March 3, 1998. Interview in The Independent. The martyrdom of brave maverick Saint Andy continues apace, it would appear. As you recall, last week, after an interminable proceeding that stretched out over two and a half […]