Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Is Sharyl Attkisson feeling the heat over her irresponsible reporting of the Alex Spourdalakis case?

Yesterday, I did a bit of navel gazing about how cranks, quacks, and antivaccinationists have a penchant for attacking skeptics at work in order to try to intimidate them into silence. Reading the post over again, I realize that it came across perhaps more whiny than it should have, but I guess I was just […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Sharyl Attkisson and CBS News: Lying by omission about the murder of autistic teen Alex Spourdalakis

The damaged done by the antivaccine movement is primarily in how it frightens parents out of vaccinating using classic denialist tactics of spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). Indeed, as has been pointed out many times before, antivaccinationists are often proud of their success in discouraging parents from vaccinating, with one leader of the antivaccine […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Computers and social media Quackery

Dr. Google and Mr. Jim

What would we do without the Internet? It’s become so necessary, so pervasive, so utterly all-enveloping that it’s hard to imagine a world without it. Given how much it pervades everything these days, it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t that long ago that the Internet was primarily the domain of universities and large research […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics

California Bill AB 2109: Real informed consent versus antivaccine misinformed consent

I’ve discussed the concept of “misinformed consent” multiple times before. Quacks in general, particularly the “health freedom” movement proclaim their dedication to “informed consent.” “All we’re asking for,” they will say, “is informed consent.” The antivaccine movement in particular demands “informed consent” about vaccines. Be it Barbara Loe Fisher, the bloggers at the antivaccine crank […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

The annals of “I’m not anti-vaccine,” part 9 (The first volley of 2012)

One of the most common retorts that antivaccine activists like to make, usually in the most wounded, self-righteous tone with the most wounded, disgusted expression on their faces that they can manage, is that they are “not antivaccine but rather pro-safe vaccine.” There may be a tiny minority of antivaccinationists who really are “pro-safe vaccine,” […]