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

Inauguration day: How President Trump could undermine trust in vaccines

In a (very) few short hours, Donald Trump will take the oath of office and become the 45th President of the United States. I realize that I don’t normally blog about politics, at least other than that related to medicine, but I make no bones about it. I’m dreading 12 Noon ET on January 20, […]

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

How should we deal with vaccine hesitancy, refusal, and antivaccine beliefs

As hard as it might be to believe, almost as long as there have been vaccinations, there has been an antivaccine movement, and as long as there has been an antivaccine movement, there have been parents who refuse to vaccinate. Indeed, in the 1800s, there were even groups with names like the Anti-Vaccination Society of […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Jill Stein and left wing antivaccine dog whistles

During the political battle last year over the recently implemented California law SB 277, which eliminates nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates and then later during the campaign for the Republican nomination for President, I used a term regarding antivaccine views. That term was “antivaccine dog whistle.” In politics, as you probably now, a “dog […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture

Rob Schneider cries “FREEDOM!” to refuse vaccination

This weekend was the 4th of July, Independence Day. It’s the most patriotic holiday of all, at least for Americans. We celebrated it in the usual way, with parades, fireworks, the odd lost digit or two, and barbecues. Unfortunately, there’s another thing that the 4th of July inevitably brings on as well, and that’s the […]

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

TruthKings: Not so truthful about vaccines

When I wrote about a systematic review of the medical literature regarding measles and pertussis outbreaks that demonstrated quite convincingly that, for these two diseases at least, the nonmedical exemptions and vaccine refusal endanger everyone, not just the unvaccinated, I was rather disappointed. I was rather disappointed because, although the article had been in press […]