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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The “American Rally for Personal [Antivaccine] Rights” metastasizes

It figures. I’ve written a couple of times about a rally to be held tomorrow in Grant Park that would be hilarious were it not an indication of the threat to public health that the anti-vaccine movement represents. Actually, it is to some extent hilarious, mainly due to the anti-vaccine Poe-worthy “music” that will be […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Quackery

Andrew Wakefield: Struck off!

It’s been a long time comin’ It’s goin’ to be a Long Time Gone. And it appears to be a long, appears to be a long, appears to be a long time, yes, a long, long, long ,long time before the dawn. – from “Long Time Gone” by Crosby, Stills & Nash Oh, happy day! […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

“Interesting times,” thanks to a confluence of anti-vaccine pseudoscience

An old Chinese combined proverb and curse is said to be, “May you live in interesting times.” Certainly, with respect to vaccines, the last few years have been “interesting times.” Unfortunately, this week times are about to get a lot more “interesting” as the Autism One quackfest descends upon Chicago beginning today. Featuring prominently in […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

Oh no! My cell phone’s going to kill me! (The revenge)

Here we go again. I’ve written a few times before about the controversy over whether cell phones (a.k.a. mobile phones in most of the rest of the world) cause brain cancer, concluding on more than one occasion that the evidence does not support a link. For example, there has not been a large increase in […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

Dichloroacetate (DCA) and cancer: Déjà vu all over again

Late last week, a crank I hadn’t heard from in a while showed up in my comments. I’m referring to DaveScot, who normally was known for promoting anti-evolution rhetoric in the service of the pseudoscience known as “intelligent design” creationism. This is what he said: Hi Orac, terrasig suggested you do a followup article on […]