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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Antivaccinationist activism versus measles in the U.S.: Are the chickens coming home to roost?

Over the last few years, depressingly, we’ve witnessed a rise in antivaccinationist activism. Beginning with the highly unethical activities of Andrew Wakefield and his bogus study in 1998 that set off a scare over the MMR vaccine supposedly causing autism that led to declining vaccination rates and skyrocketing measles and mumps rates in the U.K., […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

More of the consequences of not vaccinating…

…more outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like pertussis: Erik Ferry thought little of the sniffles and cough his 12-year-old daughter came down with in February. But the coughs became more frequent and violent, and the bug hung on for days, then weeks. Concerned it was more than just a cold, Ferry took his daughter to the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Antivaccinationists: Pot. Kettle. Black. And scary, too.

Wow. I just saw something that utterly stunned me over at that house organ of the mercury militia and antivaccinationists everywhere Age of Autism. It’s an example of hypocrisy so blatant that it stuns even me, someone who’s been following the whole pseudoscientific “vaccines cause autism” movement for over three years now. It started with […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Rumors and urban legends in the antivaccinationist movement

One of the most common aspects of any good conspiracy theory is that “they” know about it but are covering it up, “they” usually being the government. Usually, the “evidence” that “they” know consists third- or fourth-hand unverifiable stories from a “friend of a friend of a friend” who, very conveniently, just so happened to […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

David Kirby’s calling you and me out. Yawn.

Color me unimpressed. As I mentioned last week, that opportunist who has apparently become a paid shill for the hardcore antivaccination movement (namely Generation Rescue, Autism Research Institute, National Autism Association, Coalition for SAFE MINDS, and Talk About Curing Autism, all of whom helped to fund his recent trip to the U.K. and, according to […]