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Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Science

The Guatemala syphilis experiment, human subjects research abuses, and CAM

If there’s one thing that burns me about so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) clinical trials, it’s how unethical many of them are. This is particularly true for trials that test modalities that, on the basic science grounds alone, can be dismissed as so highly implausible and with such a low prior probability of success […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

SafeMinds swings at Price et al and misses

On the blogging front, I started out this week with a part facetious, part serious, part the highly detailed analysis of a new study of interest that you’ve come to know and love (or hate). The study was Price et al, and it was yet another nail in the coffin of the scientifically discredited notion […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Pumping autistic children full of an industrial chelator (revisited again)

As much fun as I had at TAM8, there is one consequence of being out of town and not paying attention to the blog or the Internet as much as I usually do. Well, actually, there are multiple consequences. One is a momentary lapse in insanity. In other words, it’s good for the mental health […]

Categories
Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

A misstep in castigating HuffPo’s journey into creationism

I’ve been a critic of Arianna Huffington’s massive group blog, The Huffington Post, since three weeks after it first blighted the blogosphere. That’s when I first noticed that the “health” section (such as it is) of HuffPo had already become a wretched hive of scum and anti-vaccine quackery, something I began documenting again and again […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Humor Medicine Quackery World War II

Zombies: A perfect metaphor for Andrew Wakefield and his followers since his utter disgrace

Regular readers may have noticed something happening around ScienceBlogs. As PZ pointed out, a little malware somehow infiltrated the ScienceBlogs collective, and many of us appear to have turned into zombies. It’s a veritable Zombie Day, complete with illustrations by Joseph Hewitt, creator of Gearhead. Obviously, with anything having to do with zombies, there’s only […]