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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

I know you are, but what am I?

Denialism. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. The story might be apocryphal, and it might not even be true, but it’s often used as a metaphor. I’m referring to the “boiling frog” story. Basically, the idea is supposedly based on an observation that a frog, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics

Antivaccine activists try to flog Rep. Dan Burton’s fear mongering about an “autism epidemic”

Oh, goody. Remember last week, when I took note of how organized quackery’s best friend in Congress, not to mention a shining example of crank magnetism, Representative Dan Burton of Indiana, was taking the opportunity of his having announced that he would not be running for reelection this year to write a typically brain dead […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

The annals of “I’m not anti-vaccine,” part 10: Titanic, Oklahoma City, or the Holocaust?

It’s not infrequent that I come under fire from antivaccinationists for, ironically enough, calling them antivaccinationists. “Oh, no,” they protest, “I’m not antivaccine. How dare you call me that? I’m actually a vaccine safety advocate.” Of course, when you probe more closely and ask a few questions, almost inevitably you’ll find that in reality they […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Entertainment/culture Medicine Music

The Refusers prove Orac’s corollary of Poe’s law once again

Remember The Refusers? They’re the antivaccine band with the recycled classic rock sound lacking a shred of originality or chops that flooded the blogosphere with their crazy in the form of Clash wanna be songs like Vaccine Gestapo, which inspired Surly Amy to make me a Vaccine Gestapo pendant to wear at TAM a couple […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Television

Donald Trump: A “monster shot” causes autism

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting imbibing the latest and greatest that science-based medicine has to offer against cancer. The AACR is mainly a basic science and translational meeting; so a lot of this stuff is seriously preclinical. That’s what makes it interesting, though. In any case, my […]