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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The Autism Omnibus: When you don’t have scientific evidence, tug on the heartstrings!

The Autism Omnibus is now officially under way, having begun with the first test case, that of Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Omnibus proceeding is the culmination of the legal cases brought to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program by nearly 5,000 families who “feel” that their children’s autism was in fact […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The Autism Omnibus, Day 1: Autism Diva has the testimony

The first day’s testimony for the Autism Omnibus has been posted, and Autism Diva has the scoop. I haven’t had a chance to peruse the PDF file of the testimony, but what the Diva reports is plenty damning. Maybe I was wrong to be so pessimistic in my earlier post. Dr. H. Vasken Aposhian’s testimony […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Paranormal Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

More antiscience from an old “friend”

Yesterday, I discussed how pseudoscience–nay, antiscience–may well triumph over science in the Autism Omnibus trial presently going on. One reason that this might happen is because of the primacy of feelings over evidence among the plaintiffs, to whose power even the Special Masters running the trial are not entirely immune. As a fellow human being, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Let down by Crooks and Liars

I normally like Crooks and Liars. However, this time around, while blogging about the Autism Omnibus, Nicole let me down. Saying that “I don’t pretend to have any special medical knowledge; so I will link both sides of the thimerosal debate,” she then linked to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s totally dishonest fearmongering piece of crap […]

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Bioethics Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Update on Katie Wernecke

Things have been very quiet as far as the story of Katie Wernecke, the 14-year-old girl with lymphoma whose parents fought a legal battle with the State of Texas to be able to choose “alternative” therapy involving high dose vitamin C, despite the fact that her conventional therapeutic options had not been exhausted and she […]