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Cancer Entertainment/culture Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Television

CBS News’ resident anti-vaccine propagandist Sharyl Attkisson dives into breast cancer crankery

Remember Sharyl Attkisson? She’s the CBS reporter who can really bring home the crazy when it comes to vaccines and autism, laying down some serious crankery (complete with many logical fallacies) and hit pieces on Dr. Paul Offit. Indeed, at times she gives Mike Adams a run for his money when it comes to laying […]

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Biology Cancer Medicine Politics Science

Are we playing it too safe in cancer research?

A couple of weeks ago, NEWSWEEK science columnist Sharon Begley wrote an article entitled From Bench To Bedside: Academia slows the search for cures. It was a rather poorly argued bit of polemic, backed up only with anecdotes that came across as sour grapes by scientists whose grant proposals the NIH had decided not to […]

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Cancer Computers and social media Medicine

What’s wrong with Steve Jobs: Yes, Jobs did have a liver transplant, but was it for metastatic insulinoma?

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the reason for Apple CEO Steve Job’s five month medical leave of absence from Apple is that he needed a liver transplant, which, according to the story, he underwent a couple of months ago in Memphis. In my discussion, I assumed, for the most part, the […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

Electroacupuncture: The bait and switch of alternative medicine

At the risk of repeating myself (but, then, since when did such concerns ever stop me before?), I’ll just start out by mentioning that, of all the non-herbal “alternative” medicine remedies out there, I used to give a bit of a pass to acupuncture. No, I never did buy any of that nonsense about how […]

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Cancer Computers and social media Medicine

What’s wrong with Steve Jobs, revisited

It’s no secret that, when it comes to computers, my preferred axe has been the Apple Macintosh. Indeed, back in the 1983-1984 school year I was in college living in a house with five other guys, and one of my roommates was a a total Apple geek. He had, as one might expect, an Apple […]