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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Religion Science

Cranks of a feather: The Nation of Islam and the Church of Scientology team with antivaccine activists to oppose SB 277

The saga of SB 277 just keeps getting stranger and stranger as its end game comes into view. SB 277 is, of course, a big deal. If it’s passed by the California Assembly and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, it would eliminate nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates, making the largest state in […]

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

Revealing the true face of the antivaccine movement

Late last week, something happened that I never would have predicted, and it’s all due to how the politics of the issue changed in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year. The state that contains some of the most famous pockets of low vaccine uptake and some of the most famous antivaccine […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Medicine Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 15: California SB 277, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the vaccine “holocaust”

Later today, I’ll be on my way to New York City to take part in the Science-Based Medicine portion of NECSS. I’m very much looking forward to it, not the least because I haven’t been to New York in five years but even more so because I look forward to meeting up with the rest […]

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Anti-Semitism Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion Science

Cranks of a feather, part 2: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. cozies up the Nation of Islam over SB 277

Last Thursday I took note of a rather fascinating confluence of cranks who have come together to oppose SB 277 in California. For those not familiar with SB 277, it is a bill currently under consideration in the California Assembly that would eliminate nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. It was passed by the Senate […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

The annals of "I'm not antivaccine," part 16: Felonious assault, deadly ordnance, and "vaccine violence," oh, my!

If there’s one thing that will annoy an antivaccinationist, it’s to call her what she is: Antivaccine. While it’s true, as I’ve pointed out on numerous occasions, that there are some antivaccinationists who are antivaccine and proud, unabashedly proclaiming themselves antivaccine and making no bones about it, the vast majority of antivaccinationists deny they are […]