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

Detoxifying fashionably

How many times have I read or heard from believers in “alternative” medicine that some disease or other is caused by “toxins”? I honestly can’t remember, but in alt-world, no matter what the disease or condition under discussion is, there’s a good chance that sooner or later it will be linked to “toxins.” It doesn’t […]

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Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Need to pander to your base? Attack funny-sounding science funded by the NSF!

Even though I was only in junior high and high school back in the 1970s, because I was already turning into a science geek I remember Senator William Proxmire (D-WI). In particular, I remember his Golden Fleece awards. These were “awards” designed to highlight what he saw as wasteful government spending, targeting, for instance, the […]

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Cancer Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The bride of the son of the revenge of cell phones and cancer rises from the grave…again

I’ve caught some flak before over things I’ve written about the almost certainly nonexistent link between cell phones and cancer. Actually, it’s not the kind of flak you probably think, unless you’ve been a long time reader and remember the relevant posts. You’d think it would be believers attacking the mean old skeptic for denying […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics

A canary in the coal mine? Or a bird pining for the fjords?

Why is it that so many bloggable items tend to pop up right before holidays? Whatever the reason, whether my perception that this is the case is accurate or simply the result of confirmation bias on my part, last Friday a little tidbit of popped up that seriously tempted me to blog about it. But […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Expelled!, anti-vaccine style, 2011 edition (continued)

Today’s a holiday here in the U.S. You’d think that I’d be taking it easy, but, sadly, thanks to the insatiable needs of the NIH grant monster, today, as I was doing most of the day Saturday and part of the day yesterday, will be working on grants; that is, when I don’t take a […]