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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

A tale of two news stories: The HPV and flu vaccines and why it’s so easy to confuse correlation with causation

And so it begins. Well, it hasn’t really just begun. In fact, it’s been going on a long time. I’m talking about confusing correlation with causation when it comes to vaccines. For example, the “vaccines cause autism” variety of the anti-vaccine movement blatantly confuses the correlation with the beginning of the increase in autism diagnoses […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Quackery Religion Television

Some “inconvenient questions” for Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins tomorrow

The endgame is in sight. At the end of this post is a list of questions for Bill Maher tomorrow (if the opportunity presents itself), the vast majority of which you, my readers, thought of. Let’s backtrack a minute. A couple of months ago, I learned that an award named after Richard Dawkins was being […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The American Academy of Family Physicians goes woo

One of the most frustrating aspects of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” is how much it’s managed to bypass the scientific orientation of academic medical institutions and insinuate itself deeply into medical academia. Indeed, Dr. R. W. Donnell once quite aptly referred to this phenomenon, where wildly implausible claims with no science behind them somehow […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Even more quackery at–where else?–The Huffington Post

Khhaaaaaannnn! I mean, Arriiiaaaaannaaa! Ever since its very inception, I’ve been–shall we say?–less than enthusiastic about the Huffington Post’s medical blogging. Indeed, the level of anti-vaccine rhetoric there from the very beginning, back in 2005, astounded me. If anything, HuffPo’s record has gotten even worse over the last four years, be it Deepak Chopra, or, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

A crazy mixed up kid comes up with a crazy mixed up conspiracy theory about a crazy mixed up blog collective, part 2

Yesterday, I wrote about Jake Crosby, the token college kid on the spectrum over at the happy home for wandering anti-vaccine zealots, Age of Autism. Specifically, I felt sorry for him because of his rather tortured bit of conspiracy mongering that postulated deep, dark connections between Adam Bly, the founder of Seed Media Group, the […]