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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

David Kirby: When you’re in a hole over vaccines and autism, get out the back hoe and dig deeper!

Pity poor David Kirby. Nearly three years ago now, he published his now-infamous Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, A Medical Mystery. Hooking up with the most vocal of the mercury militia, his book blamed mercury in vaccines as the major cause of autism. Unfortunately for Kirby, time has not been […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Humor Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: It’s all in the shoes, or is it?

One of the favorite failings in logic and science among the woo-friendly crowd is the ever-famous one of confusing correlation with causation, also known as non causa pro causa, which means “non-cause for the cause.” Examples of this are rampant, and include the antivaccinationists who confuse correlation with vaccination and the age at which autism […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Time to update the Academic Woo Aggregator

My post from Monday finally goaded me to do it. Yes, it’s time to update the Academic Woo Aggregator. I’ve been far too remiss in doing so, and at least a couple of new candidates have come to my attention as I continue to keep my eye out for more. First, from the U.S. News […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Television

Irresponsible anti-vaccination idiocy about autism to air on ABC’s “Eli Stone”

It’s times like these that I wish the Hollywood writers’ strike had really and truly shut down production of new dramas completely. A new series on ABC set to premiere on January 31 looks as though it’s going to dish up a heapin’ helpin’ of the vilest antivaccination lies and propaganda that will potentially endanger […]

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Cancer Medicine

An opposite effect of chemotherapy?

Let’s face it. These days, research papers in the peer-reviewed biomedical scientific literature are becoming more and more complex and difficult to understand. For many journals, it seems, if you don’t have at least seven meaty, dense, multipanel figures (preferably some of which with flashy color confocal microscopy), you don’t have a prayer of getting […]