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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Thinker. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

After yesterday’s detailed analysis of a study that’s being touted far and wide as “evidence” that vitamin C cures cancer, I thought I deserved a bit of a break. No, that doesn’t mean I’m going to take the day off from blogging. (Obviously, as you’re reading this now.) It does mean that I plan on […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

When antivaccinationists play on Mothering.com

Antivaccinationists irritate me, for reasons that should be obvious to regular readers. The reason is that vaccine-preventable diseases can kill. Contrary to the beliefs of many nonvaccinating parents, who downplay these diseases as being not particularly dangerous, they are dangerous. Of these, one of more dangerous vaccine-preventable diseases is pertussis. That’s why a story that […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Surviving the flu using “natural” remedies

As I’ve discussed from time to time, the three most reviled vaccines among the antivaccine movement are the HPV vaccine (Gardasil and Cervarix), the hepatitis B vaccine, and the influenza vaccine. The first two tend to be demonized because of moralistic associations with sexual activity, given that HPV is most commonly spread by sexual activity […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

More arrogance of ignorance in the antivaccine movement

After a digression yesterday, it’s time to get back to business. Don’t get me wrong. Yesterday’s post was business. It was definitely something important (to me) that needed to be said, in my not-so-humble pseudonymous opinion. It just wasn’t the usual business I engage in on this blog. I’ve often referred to what I (and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Antivaccinationists abuse reporting algorithms to silence pro-vaccine skeptics on Facebook

This is not what I wanted to write about for my first post of 2014, but unfortunately it’s necessary—so necessary, in fact, that I felt the obligation to crosspost it to my not-so-super-secret other blog in order to get this information out to as wide a readership as possible. I’ve always had a bit of […]