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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Television

Poor, poor pitiful me: Jenny McCarthy and Dr. Jay Gordon after The Vaccine War

Sometimes, when it comes to the anti-vaccine movement, I feel as though I’m bipolar. There are times when I’m incredibly depressed that pseudoscience and fear mongering are winning out, leaving our children vulnerable to infectious diseases not seen in decades and believing that it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing really major […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

The reverse pharma shill gambit applied to Age of Autism?

It’s a common tactic of suuporters of alternative medicine or other pseudoscience related to medicine to try to smear defenders of medical science as being hopelessly in the thrall of pharmaceutical companies, or, as they like to call it, “big pharma.” For example, the anti-vaccine movement in general, and Generation Rescue in particular, love to […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Richard Moore: Swallowing antivaccine lies, hook, line, and sinker

There are few things more dangerous than a reporter with no understanding of science who, though the arrogance of ignorance, somehow comes to think that he has found the “next big story.” We’ve seen it before in various incarnations. One of the first such reporters to fall down the rabbithole of vaccine pseudoscience, thinking he […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics

A confluence of the anti-vaccine and “health freedom” movements at AutismOne in Chicago

One of the biggest examples of either self-delusion or lying that emanates from the anti-vaccine movement is the oh-so-pious and indignant denials that inevitably follow from its members and leaders whenever someone like me has the temerity to point out that they are, in fact, anti-vaccine. The disingenuously angry denials usually take a form something […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

Age of Autism and Gardasil: What’s that again about not being “anti-vaccine”?

I’ve frequently referred to Age of Autism as the “anti-vaccine” crank propaganda blog and Generation Rescue, the organization that primarily runs it, a an anti-vaccine propaganda organization. Although longtime readers know exactly why I say such things, newbies might not. That’s why I consider it instructive to take note of this observation by reader Todd […]