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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

The “no debate” debate

I like the word “manufactroversy.” It’s a lovely made up word that combines the two words “manufactured controversy” and is, to boil it down, defined as the art of creating a controversy where none really exists. In the case of science, it’s the concerted effort to make it seem as though there is a legitimate […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Quackery Television

Matt Lauer to look at the vaccine-autism “debate”? Oh, goody.

I realize that I’ve gotten into one of those runs where it seems that all I blog about is anti-vaccinationist loons, but, before trying once again to take a break from the madness, I had to go to the well one more time because this looks a bit frightening: NBC News’ Matt Lauer will take […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Autism in the Presidential debate?

Was it just me, or did anyone else find it jarring when suddenly John McCain interjected special needs children and autism into the debate last night? As you may recall, a few months ago he was tripped up by the antivaccine fearmongers who think, despite an absence of scientifically compelling evidence supporting their view, that […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Getting clueless over the vaccine-autism “debate”

I’m about to head home from the conference; so I don’t have much time to do one of my usual posts. However, there is a brief bit that irritated me regarding the Hannah Poling case, and it comes from Dr. Sanjay Gupta: I want to continue the discussion today. Couple of points. First of all, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Homeopathy debate at the University of Connecticut: Is it ever wise for scientists to debate pseudoscientists?

Regular readers know that I’ve long been disturbed by the increasing infiltration of non-evidence-based “alternative” medical therapies into academic medical centers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). I’ve come across another example of how much this has occurred. This time around, it’s come in the form of a “debate” being held at 2 […]