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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Religion and quackery: Pure synergy

Those of us who support science-based medicine and do our part to expose and combat quackery are naturally outraged at how rarely quacks are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. All too often, all we can expect is for doctors practicing such chicanery to lose their medical licenses and be temporarily shut down. […]

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Anti-Semitism Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Medicine

Quoth antivaccinationist Hilary Butler: Non-vaccinators are the “new Jews”

I’ve never been able to figure it out. Antivaccine zealots seem to have an intense love of Nazi analogies and comparing those supporting science-based medicine to Nazis. While from a strictly nasty point of view, I can sort of understand the utility of such analogies to demonize one’s opponents. After all, to political extremists of […]

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History Medicine Politics Popular culture Science

Score one for the antiscience cranks in Portland on fluoridation

Chalk one up for the forces of anti-science, quackery, and pseudoscience. The citizens of Portland, Oregon just handed them a huge victory the other day when they once again rejected water fluoridation in a referendum: Fluoride supporters, it appeared, had everything going for them. Five Portland city commissioners had voted to add fluoride to the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The legacy of Andrew Wakefield continues

Actions have consequences. No matter how much the person might want to try to hide from the consequences of one’s actions, they frequently have a way of coming back, grabbing you by the neck, and letting you know they’re there. We see it happening now in the U.K. Fifteen years ago, British doctor Andrew Wakefield […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy

A study contributes to the deceptive rebranding of naturopathy as “lifestyle counseling”

That naturopathy is a veritable cornucopia of quackery mixed with the odd sensible, science-based suggestion here and there is not in doubt, at least not to supporters of science-based medicine (SBM). However, what naturopaths are very good at doing is representing their pseudoscience as somehow being scientific and thus on par with actual SBM. So […]