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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

NYU holds a conference on resistance to vaccines. Antivaxers lose it.

One of the great things about America has been the First Amendment, particularly the right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. These are rights allow us to gather together to protest when we see something that we don’t think is right and want to change. Unfortunately, there is one downside to these freedoms, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

I fear for medical science under Donald Trump

It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump unexpectedly won the Presidential election despite losing the popular vote. Regular readers of my not-so-super-secret other blog know my opinion of this; so I won’t belabor it too much here. If you’re curious, I have written about Donald Trump’s antivaccine views here many times dating back to 2007, […]

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Medicine

Torturing more mice in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience

Of all the vaccines out there, it’s hard for me to decide which among them antivaccine activists fear and detest the most. Sure, there’s the MMR vaccine, the original granddaddy bete noire, demonized so successfully by Andrew Wakefield as causing autism based on some of the flimsiest evidence ever, evidence later shown to be fraudulent. […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Sports

Acupuncture: Getting the point

I’ve frequently written about what I like to refer to as “quackademic medicine,” defined as the infiltration of outright quackery into medical academia, particularly medical schools and academic medical centers. There’s no doubt that it’s a significant problem as hallowed institutions like Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center embrace nonsense, pseudoscience, and quackery in the name of […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Politics Quackery

A rare win for science: The FTC issues its enforcement policy on homeopathic remedies

Whenever I write about homeopathy, I almost always refer to it at least once as “The One Quackery To Rule Them All.” It’s a phrase I’ve used to describe homeopathy for several years now, and for good reason. Of all the quackery out there, with the possible exception of reiki, homeopathy is the one that […]