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Clinical trials Medicine Politics Quackery

Acupuncture: Not an “essential health benefit” in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

This week, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that can only be described as historic. Any of you out there (in the U.S. anyway; I realize that my readership is international) who have paid even a passing attention to the news can’t help but avoid reporting, debate, and polemics related to the Patient Protection […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics

California Bill AB 2109: Real informed consent versus antivaccine misinformed consent

I’ve discussed the concept of “misinformed consent” multiple times before. Quacks in general, particularly the “health freedom” movement proclaim their dedication to “informed consent.” “All we’re asking for,” they will say, “is informed consent.” The antivaccine movement in particular demands “informed consent” about vaccines. Be it Barbara Loe Fisher, the bloggers at the antivaccine crank […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The promotion of an antivaccine propaganda movie continues apace

I’ll give the Canary Party credit for one thing, if credit you can consider it. It’s persistent in its promotion of antivaccine pseudoscience. Somehow, someone at Current TV decided that it would be a good idea to show an utterly unbalanced, utterly cranky, utterly propagandistic “documentary” (The Greater Good) that seeks to demonize vaccines as […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

6 New Age cures that are (mostly) as full of crap as you think

Sometimes you find good skepticism in strange places. One example of this has been Cracked.com. Normally, Cracked.com is a humor site based on the magazine that I used to read sometimes back in 1970s. Unfortunately, the magazine folded several years ago, but the website lives on. For example, Cracked.com once did a snarky article making […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

A school board president abuses his position to promote an antivaccine movie

A science-based blogger’s work is never done, apparently. I’ll show you what I mean in a minute. But first, I just have to make a simple observation. Pseudoscience, be it quackery, evolution denial, denial of anthropogenic global warming, antivaccine nonsense, or other forms of pseudoscience, apparently never dies. No matter how many times it’s slapped […]