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Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Surgery

Enough straw man attacks on evidence-based medicine to defoliate Kansas

Evidence-based medicine is not perfect. There, I’ve said it. Like anything else humans do in science or any other endeavor, evidence-based medicine (EBM) has its strengths and its weaknesses. On the whole, I consider it to be potentially vastly superior to the way that medicine was practiced in the past, bringing a systematic, scientific rigor […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture

The soft eugenics of MAHA: Measles and RFK Jr.

I’ve long said that the antivax movement is borderline eugenicist (or at least social Darwinist) in nature. Given the ongoing measles outbreak, with two children dead so far, it’s time for me to take a look at the “soft eugenics” of the antivax movement and, more generally, the MAHA movement.

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History Medicine Science

The frequent crank fallacy of the appeal to Semmelweis

A proponent of the Great Barrington Declaration is comparing rejection of its “natural herd immunity” approach to the pandemic to the rejection of Ignaz Semmelweis and his findings (and Galileo, too). It’s a deceptive comparison beloved of all manner of scientific cranks.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Politics Popular culture

Dr. Vinay Prasad gaslights his readers about RFK Jr. ‘s role in the deadly Samoa measles outbreak

One of many shameful incidents in the life of antivax activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was his promotion of anti-MMR fear mongering during a measles epidemic in Samoa. Now that he could become HHS Secretary, his apologists are frantically trying to gaslight you. Here’s how.

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Cancer Medicine

Antivax cancer quacks go “orthomolecular”

Antivaxxers have gone full cancer quack. This time, they’re peddling “orthomolecular medicine” nonsense in the form of a bad study. Same as it ever was.