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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The “Health Ranger” Mike Adams takes on Obamacare with hilarious results

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’m not really a political blogger. True, I do from time to time succumb to the blogger’s temptation of being a pundit on current events or pontificating on politics, but in general I don’t do that very often because political bloggers are a dime a dozen […]

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Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

“Academic freedom” for pseudoscience?

Readers may have noticed (or maybe they haven’t) that I haven’t commented at all on the Guillermo Gonzalez case. As you may recall, Gonzalez is an astronomer at Iowa State University, as well as advocate of “intelligent design” creationism. In May 2007, ISU denied tenure to Gonzalez. Not surprisingly, the ID movement in general and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

V is for Vaccine: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Del Bigtree rile up an antivaccine demonstration against SB 276

“V is for Vaccine” was an antivaccine protest at the California Capitol yesterday. RFK Jr. and Del Bigtree fired up antivaxers with their usual cocktail of pseudoscience, misinformation, and political posturing as “health freedom” advocates.

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Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Burzynski’s old lawyer Richard Jaffe throws a quack stem cell clinic under the bus

Richard Jaffe was Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s lawyer. For nearly two decades, Jaffe defended this cancer quack from the FDA, Texas Medical Board, and the government in the name of “health freedom” and even invented Burzynski’s business model of having over 70 clinical trials open that allow him to treat any cancer patient he wants. More recently, he’s been a defender of for-profit quack stem cell clinics. Last week, he shocked me by finding one stem cell clinic so quacky that he thinks the government should shut it down, even going so far as to use criminal prosecution if necessary. Basically, he’s willing to throw one quack stem cell clinic under the bus, so that others can continue to profit.

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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.