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Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science

When what an acupuncture study shows is much more interesting than what acupuncture believers think it shows

Of all the “alternative” therapies out there, arguably the most studied is the modality known as acupuncture. Perhaps the reason is that, unlike homeopathy, which based on physics, chemistry, and biology alone is so implausible that, for it to “work,” huge swaths of well-established physics and chemistry would have to be shown to be not […]

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Blog housekeeping Medicine

Opening Orac’s holiday mailbag…

Today is a holiday in the U.S., Memorial Day. This is a day when we remember our war dead, but the three day weekend that accompanies the last Monday in May is also viewed as the unofficial start of summer. Consequently, I decided to take it easy and simply post a bit of e-mail from […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

“Unscrupulous” skeptics versus the delusions of an anti-vaccinationist

Damn! I knew I made my promise to myself not to write about vaccines again for at least a few days too soon! Whenever I do that, it seems, one of two things happens. Either something important happens that, having become, however it happened, the go-to blogger for commenting on the anti-vaccine movement, I can’t […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

The SkepDoc reviews Callous Disregard

The week is coming to a close, and the Memorial Day holiday beckons for those of us in the U.S. I’ve spent most of this week blogging about the anti-vaccine movement, and I do need a rest. Next week, I promise to try to stay away from this issue as much as possible, not just […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Is the anti-vaccine movement fizzling?

After a week of some of the most amazing anti-vaccine craziness that I’ve seen in quite a while, a week that started with anti-vaccine hero Andrew Wakefield’s name being struck off the list of licensed medical practitioners in the U.K. During the entire week, there was (and is ongoing) an anti-vaccine crank conference known as […]