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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Simon Singh appeals Judge Eady’s bogus libel ruling

Back in May many of us in the skeptical blogosphere were alarmed to learn of what British law blogger Jack of Kent termed “an astonishingly illiberal ruling” by Sir David Eady against science writer Simon Singh. Eady was the judge presiding over another bit of legal thuggery by practitioners whose feelings were hurt when Simon […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Paying the price of vaccine refusal

I’ve warned time and time again what the price will be if the Jenny McCarthy and her fellow arrogantly ignorant band of vaccine “skeptics” continue to get more and more traction. So have many others. It is true that, for the moment, vaccination rates overall remain high in the U.S., but there are numerous troubling […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine

So true, so true…

What should a drug company do if it spends millions of dollars on a compound and it doesn’t do anything? Easy: (Click on the panel to see the whole cartoon.) In fact, I’m surprised more pharmaceutical companies don’t do this…

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

After all this time, Dr. Bob Sears finally tips his hand on vaccines

Yesterday, I wrote a post about what fellow ScienceBlogger Isis would term “hot, hot science.” As much as I love science like that, writing such posts is a lot of work and takes considerably longer than my run-of-the-mill bit of insolent brilliance. Often, after writing an analysis of a peer-reviewed paper like that, I need […]

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Biology Cancer Evolution Medicine Science

Medicine and evolution, part 12: Using evolution to develop adaptive chemotherapy

Three years ago, I wrote about what I considered to be a fascinating and promising approach to understanding tumor biology. This method involved understanding that tumors are in general made up of a heterogeneous collection of cells. Using this knowledge, it is possible to apply evolutionary principles to cancer, treating a tumor as, in essence, […]