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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery

The vilest antivaccine lie that won’t die: Shaken baby syndrome as “vaccine injury”

Way back in the day, when I first encountered antivaccine views in that wretched Usenet swamp of pseudoscience, antiscience, and quackery known as misc.health.alternative, there was one particular antivaccine lie that disturbed me more than just about any other. No, it wasn’t the claim that vaccines cause autism, the central dogma of the antivaccine movement. […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

The annals of “I’m not anti-vaccine,” part 9 (The first volley of 2012)

One of the most common retorts that antivaccine activists like to make, usually in the most wounded, self-righteous tone with the most wounded, disgusted expression on their faces that they can manage, is that they are “not antivaccine but rather pro-safe vaccine.” There may be a tiny minority of antivaccinationists who really are “pro-safe vaccine,” […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Variations on a theme of anti-vaccine nonsense

If there’s one thing about anti-vaccine activists that is virtually their sine qua non, it’s an utter lack of understanding of science. Actually, a more accurate description would be that it’s a highly selective understanding of science. Nowhere do I find this to be the case as much as when I see anti-vaccine loons pulling […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

When anti-vaccine loons make videos…

…the results aren’t pretty. If there’s one thing about anti-vaccine loons that I’ve come to learn over the last decade or so, it’s that when they think they’re being clever, they’re really not. Exhibit A for this case follows: Yes, courtesy of a particularly brain dead anti-vaccine website (and, compared to Age of Autism, that’s […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

Dumbest comment ever?

Orac’s anti-stupidity circuits just took a serious beating. It’s kind of like Star Trek, when the Enterprise is being battered by multiple Klingon warships. After multiple phaser and photon torpedo hits, its shields are down to 10% and in danger of failing. Orac is feeling sort of like that right now, except that it was […]