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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery Religion

What’s the harm? A child dies a preventable death from an ear infection

A common question, rhetorical or otherwise, that skeptics are asked about alternative medicine is, “What’s the harm?” It’s seemingly an effective ploy for some modalities, so much so that years ago Tim Farley felt obligated to try to answer the question on a website (whatstheharm.net) that catalogues examples of the harm alternative medicine, supernatural and […]

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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

A victory in the long war against autism quackery

As depressing as the litany of quackery and patient harm that I follow nearly every day can become, occasionally I am heartened to learn of a victory for science-based medicine and, more importantly, for the patients being victimized by pseudoscientific treatments. One of the most simultaneously ridiculous and vile of these treatments is a solution […]

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Medicine Uncategorized

How is it that I’ve never heard of David Avocado Wolfe before?

I’ve been at this skeptical blogging thing for over a decade now. I realize that I periodically remind you, my readers, of this and that perhaps I do it too often, but my reminders generally serve a purpose. Specifically, they serve to put an exclamation point on my surprise when I discover a new purveyor […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

SB 277 advances, and antivaccine activists lose it (again)

Antivaccine activism endangers children. Of that there is no longer any doubt. As vaccination rates fall, the risk of outbreaks of dangerous vaccine-preventable infectious diseases among children rise. In the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year, several states introduced measures to restrict nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine requirements. The record in passing […]

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

I thought I’d seen it all: Epigenetic birth control

Epigenetics. As I’ve described before, to alternative medicine practitioners, epigenetics seems to mean something akin to what the word “quantum” means: Magic. I’ve covered, for example, the woo-filled stylings of Deepak Chopra invoking things like “quantum consciousness,” and seemingly for quite a few years the best way to slap a patina of “sciencey”-sounding credibility on […]