Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

A P.R. flack from the Burzynski Clinic threatens a skeptical blogger

A common thread that runs through the activities of various antiscience cranks, quacks, charlatans, and denialists is an extreme aversion to criticism. In fact, in many cases their aversion to criticism is so extreme that a common reaction of cranks to even legitimate criticism is to try to shut that criticism down any way possible. […]

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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Marc Stephens issues more threats on behalf of the Burzynski Clinic

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I was simultaneously alarmed and amused at how someone named Marc Stephens, who claims (although presents no evidence for his claim) that he represents the rogue physician and “researcher” Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, had taken to threatening skeptical bloggers who criticize Dr. Burzynski’s highly dubious cancer therapy, a therapy Burzynski dubbed […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The antivaccine crankosphere rallies around its hero, and Brian Deer strikes back

When I wrote last week about the latest legal thuggery against an opponent of antivaccine pseudoscience, this time by hero of the antivaccine movement, who sued investigative reporter Brian Deer for defamation, there was one thing about the case that confused me, one aspect that didn’t add up to me. Part of it was why […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

I really admire skeptical English bloggers and commentators…

…because they blog under the shadow of the United Kingdom’s insane libel laws. Witness this travesty of a ruling on the libel case against Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association, as related by Jack of Kent. I first learned about the UK’s exceedingly plaintiff-friendly libel laws when, shortly after I became interested in Holocaust […]

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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 […]