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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

In which pro-vaccine advocates are inappropriately portrayed as frenzied, self-righteous “zealots”

One of the odd things about having been a blogger as long as I have been is that, occasionally, posts that I wrote years ago rise up to bite me long after I’ve forgotten that I even wrote them. Actually, that’s usually not the right way to put it. Blogging is a very short term […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

An antivaccine-sympathetic legislator right in my own back yard!

I’ve written on multiple occasions of what I like to refer to as “antivaccine dog whistles.” In politics, the term “dog whistle” refers to things politicians can say to certain groups, usually groups with odious views, that they are with them without actually echoing the views for which the group at which the dog whistle […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Television

America’s quack counterattacks by calling his critics industry hacks

Last week, a group of ten doctors led by Dr. Henry Miller, most of whom were affiliated either with the Hoover Institution or the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)—or both—wrote a letter to Lee Goldman, MD, the Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia University complaining that Dr. Mehmet […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine News of the Weird Politics Religion

No, Lawrence Solomon, UNICEF and WHO are not trying to sterilize women with tetanus vaccines!

There are some antivaccine lies that just never die. Well, actually, most of them are very much like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger in that, just when you think you’ve killed them at the end of the latest confrontation, they always come back. Always. As an example of this, let’s go back four […]

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Anti-Semitism Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

As states try to crack down on non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates, antivaccinationists lose it (yellow Star of David edition)

With the Disneyland measles outbreak still going strong and striking far more unvaccinated than vaccinated, it’s not surprising that a discussion has begun in some states about lax policies that permit religious and/or philosophical exemptions. In Oregon, for example, the legislature is considering SB442, a bill apparently originally intended to provide a technical fix to […]