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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Politics

Battling antivaccinationists at FreedomFest, part 2 (Dr. Whitaker responds)

During this year’s TAM, I had the distinct pleasure of accompanying Steve Novella and Michael Shermer to debate an antivaccinationist at FreedomFest, a conservative/libertarian confab that was going on in Las Vegas at the same time as TAM. That antivaccinationist turned out to be Dr. Julian Whitaker, a man who champions Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Skepticism/critical thinking

Battling antivaccinationists at FreedomFest

Like so many other skeptics, I just returned from TAM, which, despite all the conflict and drama surrounding it this year, actually turned out to be a highly enjoyable experience for myself and most people I talked to. As I’ve been doing the last few years, I joined up with Steve Novella and other proponents […]

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Announcements Autism Complementary and alternative medicine

Off to TAM…or the Vegas in July open thread

Here we go again… Yes, I’m off to The Amazing Meeting, a.k.a. TAM, where I’ll commune with a bunch of fellow skeptics, help do a workshop on science-based medicine, and participate in a panel discussion of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine.” Things have been so crazy the last couple of weeks that it turns out […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine History Hitler Zombie Holocaust Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery World War II

School vaccine mandates are against the Nuremberg Code?

About a week and a half ago, I took note of a rather unhinged rant by comedian Rob Schneider about vaccines in which he trotted out an antivaccine movement’s greatest hits compendium of pseudoscience, misinformation, and logical fallacies, all in the service of opposing California Bill AB 2109. Antivaccine activists hate this piece of legislation […]

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Bioethics Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

True "individualization" of cancer therapy

One major point I’ve tried to make over the last few years is that the so-called “individualization” or “personalization” of treatments claimed by practitioners of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) is not “individualization” at all, but rather a sham that appears superficially like individualization but in reality is not. I say that because the “individualization” […]