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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

More disease and death among the unvaccinated

Beginning on Friday after my post expressing amazement at something as rare as a 70° F temperature in January (at least around my neck of the woods), namely an actual provaccine article in the Huffington Post, a number of you began sending me links to a story that I find most disturbing, a mini-tsunami that […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Quackery Science

Left is right and up is down: An actual pro-vaccine article on The Huffington Post?

When it comes to science, I’ve always detested The Huffington Post. Nearly four years ago, when Arianna Huffington’s vanity group political blog went live, I was the first one to notice a most disturbing trend about it. As far as I knew at the time (or know now), I was the only one to have […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Clinical trials Medicine Quackery

Blurring the line between scientist and parent

Being involved in clinical research makes me aware of the ethical quandaries that can arise. Fortunately for me, for the most part my studies are straightforward and don’t provoke much in the way of angst over whether what I am doing is ethical or whether I’m approaching a line I shouldn’t approach or crossing a […]

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Clinical trials Medicine Surgery

Surgical checklists as a strategy to reduce morbidity and mortality

About a year ago, I discussed an article by Dr. Atul Gawande describing a quality improvement initiative that appeared to have been stalled by the Office for Human Research Protections and its apparent tendency to apply human subjects research protection rules to initiatives that are not exactly research using human subjects. The problem appeared to […]

Categories
Humor Pareidolia Religion Skepticism/critical thinking

“John Smith” responds to Orac’s post on his Lava Lamp pareidolia

This was so good that I just couldn’t resist. Yesterday, I did a quick post about an amusing bit of pareidolia, in which the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus were seen in a Lava Lamp. Apparently, an Australian man going by the pseudonym of John Smith noticed the shape in the wax as he fired […]