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

Antivaccinationist activism versus measles in the U.S.: Are the chickens coming home to roost?

Over the last few years, depressingly, we’ve witnessed a rise in antivaccinationist activism. Beginning with the highly unethical activities of Andrew Wakefield and his bogus study in 1998 that set off a scare over the MMR vaccine supposedly causing autism that led to declining vaccination rates and skyrocketing measles and mumps rates in the U.K., […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

The consequences of not vaccinating

In case you haven’t heard it enough on this blog and elsewhere: Antivaccination lunacy has consquences. In the UK, measles cases have jumped to a record high: The number of measles cases in England and Wales jumped more than 30% last year to the highest level since records began in 1995. The Health Protection Agency […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The American Academy of Pediatrics versus antivaccinationist hypocrisy

Three weeks ago, I wrote about some truly irresponsible antivaccination propaganda masquerading as entertainment that aired in the form of a television show called Eli Stone. This show, which portrayed its hero taking on the case of an autistic boy whose mother blamed his autism on thimerosal (going under the fictional name “mercuritol”) in vaccines […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Yet another really bad day for antivaccinationists: This time there’s no link between the MMR and autism

I hadn’t planned on blogging about vaccines again for a while. Really, I hadn’t. Even I realize the risk of beating the proverbial dead horse just one time too often. Also, It seems that I’ve been writing about antivaccination loons a lot lately, even more than usual. However, aside from a prime time spot for […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The real “evidence of harm”

I haven’t written before about the tragic case of Katie McCarron, the three year old autistic girl whose mother killed her in May 2006. It’s an incredibly sad tale, and others have covered it better. However, the trial started last week, and on Friday there was some testimony that suggests an effect of all the […]