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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine

The (Not-So-Thinking) Mom’s Revolution makes an amazingly silly analogy about vaccines

I know I dump on a website known as The Thinking Moms’ Revolution (TMR), but I do so with good reason. Given what a wretched hive of antivaccine scum and quackery that website is, rivaling or surpassing any antivaccine website I can think of, even the blog equivalent of the great granddaddies of wretched hives […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The price of antivaccine fanaticism, 2013 edition

That the myth that vaccines cause autism is indeed nothing more than a myth, a phantom, a delusion unsupported by science is no longer in doubt. In fact, it’s been many years now since it was last taken seriously by real scientists and physicians, as opposed to crank scientists and physicians, who are still selling […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine

A simultaneously sympathetic and unsympathetic commentary on an antivaccine screed

The false idea that vaccines somehow cause or contribute to autism has been a common theme on this blog, and I’ve spent considerable verbiage discussing why anyone would think that vaccines are in any way associated with autism when the science is quite clear that they are not. If there’s one thing I’ve been consistent […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Religion

Alternative medicine as religion, one more time

A couple of days ago, I did one of my usual bits of pontification about alternative medicine, this time around pointing out how religion facilitates the magical thinking that undergirds so much pseudoscientific medicine and how the belief systems that underlie so so much of alternative medicine resembel the belief systems that underlie religion. However, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Religion

Alternative medicine as religion

Over the years, I’ve often likened non-science-based medical belief systems to religion. It’s not a hard argument to make. Religion involves believing in things that can’t be proven scientifically; indeed, religion makes a virtue out of ignoring the evidence and accepting various beliefs on faith alone. Similarly, alternative medicine frequently tells you that you have […]