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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The VA and Dr. Tracy Gaudet: Integrating quackery into the care of veterans

I was originally going to write this post for the 4th of July, given the subject matter. However, as regular readers know, I am not unlike Dug the Dog in the movie Up, with new topics that float past me in my social media and blog reading rounds serving as the squirrel. But never let […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The difference between being antivaccine and “pro-safe vaccine,” explained using J.B. Handley

One of the most frequent complaints leveled at pro-science advocates who defend vaccines against antivaccine misinformation and pseudoscience is that we’re way too fast to label them as “antivaccine,” that we use the term as a convenient label to demonize their views. We’re not really antivaccine, they tell us. We’re vaccine safety advocates. Really. Now, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Popular culture

Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree: Privileged white males harming African-Americans with antivaccine propaganda

There’s always been a major thread of distrust of the medical profession in the African-American community, understandably so given the history of abuses such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which the natural progression of untreated syphilis was studied in African-American men for 40 years. It’s not just that experiment that’s responsible, either. During the […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Quack attack: Naturopaths and supplement companies press for naturopathic licensure in Michigan

Over the years, I’ve taken care of women with locally advanced breast cancer so advanced that it’s eroded through the skin, forming huge, nasty ulcers filled with stinky dead cancer tissue that’s outgrown its blood supply, leaving the patient in chronic pain. If the patient is fortunate, her cancer has not metastasized beyond her axillary […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Naturopaths and supplement manufacturers: In bed together to promote naturopathic licensure

After yesterday’s epic mid-week rant about a man who thinks he knows what skepticism is but clearly doesn’t, it’s time to get back to business. The best way to do that is to go back to an article that came out the other day and that I had meant to blog about but temporarily shelved […]