Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery Television

Stephen Colbert sells out to Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop

Almost alone among celebrities, Stephen Colbert used to ruthlessly (and justifiably) mock Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand Goop on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. So eyebrows were raised (at least mine were) when it was learned that Paltrow would be a guest on The Late Show. During a bout of insomnia last night I saw the episode and had time to write about it. Her appearance was worse than I expected, a veritable puff piece promoting her her quackiest In Goop Health, where a featured speaker is a rabidly antivaccine doctor named Kelly Brogan.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

Quackery and “wellness”: The case of David and Collet Stephan and their son Ezekiel

David and Collet Stephan stand convicted of not having provided their son Ezekiel with essential medical care, which led to his death from meningitis. None of this stopped the “wellness” industry from featuring David as a speaker at its expos; that is, until it started causing bad publicity. When that happened, Stephan was unceremoniously dumped. But the quackery in “wellness” remains unchanged.

Categories
Bad science Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Penn Jillette interviews water fast guru Dr. Michael Klaper. Woo ensues.

Dr. Michael Klaper advocates a plant-based “whole food” diet and water fasts as the cure for what ails you, with demonstrably overblown claims for the benefits of such practices and invocation of nonsense “detoxification”? Yet Penn Jillette gave him a friendly forum on his podcast. Where did the Penn of “Penn & Teller: Bullshit!” go? Here we examine Dr. Klaper’s claims and find them weak on science.

Categories
Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Autism One: As quacky as it ever was

Once again, the yearly autism quackfest known as Autism One is fast approaching. In fact, it will begin in Chicago tomorrow: five days of “autism biomed” quackery and antivaccine pseudoscience. Ever since the Great Schism in the autism antivaccine quackery community, which severed Generation Rescue from Autism One and ended Jenny McCarthy’s run of being […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Personal Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

I do not think that study shows what you think it shows

Dr. Kelly Brogan teams up with Sayer Ji to try to analyze a study. Hilarity ensues as they both failed miserably.