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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Entertainment/culture Medicine Music Popular culture Quackery

Jack’s Fourth Show: How anti-vaccine groups rebrand themselves as legitimate autism charities

There once was a time not so long ago–oh, say, four our five years–when the anti-vaccine fringe was looked upon as what it was: a fringe group, a bunch of quacks and quack advocates, all in essence one big conspiracy theory movement, in which vaccines are the One True Cause of Autism. At the time, […]

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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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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Autism quackery in my second hometown

My first hometown, as many readers of this blog know, is Detroit, where I spent the first ten years or so of my life. My second hometown, as I pointed out a while back when a particularly loony city council candidate caught the eye of the skeptical blogosphere. Unfortunately, I just found out that there’s […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Thar’s gold in them thar “cures”!

As I mentioned on Friday, I’m in Chicago right now attending the American College of Surgeons annual meeting, where I’ll be until Wednesday afternoon. If there are any of my readers who happen to be surgeons attending the meeting, drop me a line and maybe we can get together. In the meantime, here’s a blast […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Quackery Television

Suzanne Somers carpet bombs the media with napalm-grade stupid about cancer

There are two times a year that seem to be a time to beware of a serious assault of pseudoscience and quackery. The first time of year is in April, which is Autism Awareness Month. Over the last few years I can be just as sure as night following day, only to be followed by […]