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

Ben Swann’s long-awaited report on the “CDC whistleblower” goes over like a lead balloon of antivaccine misinformation

Ben Swann, anchor of the evening news for the local Atlanta CBS affiliate and the face of his Truth In Media series of videos, thinks himself an investigative journalist and a truth teller, but much of what I see him reporting more closely resembles reporting as though done by a cross between Ted Baxter, Ron […]

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

The University of Wollongong issues a PhD in antivaccine pseudoscience

I remember my PhD thesis. In particular, I remember the years of work that went into it. I remember being grilled (with good, constructive intent) by my thesis committee a couple of times a year as I worked on it. I remember the many, many hours spend writing it. And, above all, I remember the […]

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

The CDC whistleblower data dump redux: Even William Thompson appears not to believe the antivaccine spin

Yesterday was kind of busy and a long day in the operating room rather drained me. So I only had time for a quick followup to yesterday’s post on how Matt Carey obtained the entire document dump that the “CDC whistleblower” William W. Thompson gave to Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), who then gave it to […]

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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Dr. Lipson versus Dr. Brownstein: Science versus antivaccine misinformation and fear mongering in my own back yard

It always irritates me when I discover a new antivaccine crank in my state; so you can imagine how irritated I become when I discover one right in my very city (OK, metropolitan area). When that happens, it becomes a bit more personal than my usual mission to refute antivaccine misinformation. So I was most […]

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Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Fixing peer review

I’ve frequently noted that one of the things most detested by quacks and promoters of pseudoscience is peer review. Creationists hate peer review. HIV/AIDS denialists hate it. Anti-vaccine cranks like those at Age of Autism hate it. Indeed, as blog bud Mark Hoofnagle Mark Hoofnagle, pointed out several years ago, pseudoscientists and cranks of all […]