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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

All drugs are poisons, and that’s OK

There are a number of aphorisms that one imbibes over many years of medical education, especially in medical school. Some are useful; some are not; but some stick with you for reasons that even you can’t figure out. For example, I still remember my first day of medical school over 30 (!) years ago. It […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Tribeca Film Festival wrap-up: Andrew Wakefield’s “brilliance” and spies and Nazis, oh my!

Whenever a story like Robert De Niro’s decision to choose an antivaccine film by Andrew Wakefield for screening at his prestigious Tribeca Film Festival followed by his decision to drop the film like the proverbial hot potato upon being shown just how full of misinformation, distortions, and pseudoscience the film is shows up, I not […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

When alternative medicine cancer cures fail, it’s always the patient’s fault. Always.

After a trilogy of posts on the lamentably bad decision on the part of the Tribeca Film Festival to screen a pseudoscience- and misinformation-filled documentary by hero to the antivaccine movement, Andrew Wakefield, that is basically one long conspiracy theory, I thought it was time for a change. I had briefly toyed with the idea […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

TruthKings: Not so truthful about vaccines

When I wrote about a systematic review of the medical literature regarding measles and pertussis outbreaks that demonstrated quite convincingly that, for these two diseases at least, the nonmedical exemptions and vaccine refusal endanger everyone, not just the unvaccinated, I was rather disappointed. I was rather disappointed because, although the article had been in press […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The Woo Boat, part 2: Andrew Wakefield versus the skeptics

About six months ago, I was highly amused to discover something called the Conspira-Sea Cruise, which I referred to at The Woo Boat. As I said at the time, file this one under the category: You can’t make stuff like this up. Certainly, I couldn’t. I’ve never been on a cruise. Quite frankly, the very […]