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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

No difference between “too many too soon” and “too few too late” when it comes to vaccines

Regular readers know that I have a tendency every so often to whine about when writing about the antics of the anti-vaccine movement seems to engulf this blog. Yes, it’s true. Every so often I get really, really tired of the bad science, pseudoscience, magical thinking, misinformation, and even outright lies that emanate from various […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Suppression of speech through legal intimidation, anti-vaccine edition: Barbara Loe Fisher sues Dr. Paul Offit, Amy Wallace, and Condé Nast for libel

In general, one of the biggest differences between those defending science-based medicine and those defending pseudoscience, quackery, and anti-science is that science inculcates in its adherents a culture of free and open debate. In marked contrast, those advocating pseudoscience tend to cultivate cultures of the echo chamber. Examples abound and include discussion forums devoted to […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics

Anti-vaccine activism, not autism activism

Remember how I said that I was trying to take it easy this week? I still am, but there’s something bugging me enough to draw me out of my grant-induced cocoon for a little while in order to pontificate on it in the not-so-Respectfully Insolent way that I am so often wont to do. True, […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Politics

“Obama’s fixin’ death panels for your mama”: The USPSTF recommendations for mammography used as a political weapon

As I discussed in detail when I analyzed them, the new USPSTF recommendations for screening mammography for breast cancer have sparked a debate that has degenerated from a scientific and public policy debate into pure emotional rhetoric. When last I visited this topic, yesterday, I had intended it to be my last post for a […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Desiree Jennings “cured” of her “vaccine-induced dystonia”?

Remember how I promised that I’d do my next installment of my blogging Suzanne Somers’ pile of idiocy, namely her own book, before the end of the week? Plans change, and neurons melt, which they did in response to reading the first several chapters of Suzanne Somers’ book. Don’t worry, though. I’ll definitely try to […]