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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Science

Humpty Dumpty and cranks, quacks, and antivaccinationists

One of my favorite quotes from classic literature comes from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, when Alice encounters a rather strange character named Humpty Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty, as you will likely recall, was a giant egg with whom Alice got into an argument about the meaning of words: And only ONE for birthday presents, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Physics Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Quackademia at the University of Toronto: Antivaccine pseudoscience taught by a homeopath is “not unbalanced”

Aside from deconstructing the misinformation and pseudoscience of the antivaccine movement, another of the top three or so topics I routinely discuss here is the infiltration of pseudoscience into medicine. In particular, I’ve found and discussed more examples than I can possibly remember of what I like to call quackademic medicine, defined as the infiltration […]

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

The Triumph of New Age Medicine, part deux, courtesy of The Atlantic

There can be no doubt that, when it comes to medicine, The Atlantic has an enormous blind spot. Under the guise of being seemingly “skeptical,” the magazine has, over the last few years, published some truly atrocious articles about medicine. I first noticed this during the H1N1 pandemic, when The Atlantic published an article lionizing […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery

When traditional medicine doesn’t help, does integrative medicine provide answers?

Sometimes, I think advocates of “integrative” medicine are trolling me. Of course, unlike antivaccine advocates, I realize it (usually) isn’t about me at all and they’re just writing what they believe and have (usually in the vast majority of cases) never encountered me and (usually in the vast majority of cases) aren’t considering me at […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery

Now what? Will SB 277 enrich antivaccine doctors?

My original intention was to write about something entirely different today, but, really, how could I, given that SB277 has become law in California and non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates are a thing of the past? The topic I had in mind for today can easily keep for a day or two anyway. Besides, […]