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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Politics Popular culture Quackery

Medical marijuana for autism and autism biomed quackery: One in the same and on the verge of approval in Michigan

When I first started writing about the claims made for medical marijuana and the cannabis oil derived from it, it didn’t take long for me to characterize medical claims for cannabis as the “new herbalism,” as opposed to pharmacognosy, the branch of pharmacology devoted to the study of natural products. The reason is simple. Although […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

GcMAF, autism “biomed,” and the apparent suicide of an autism quack

Three weeks ago, I did a post about how prone the antivaccine movement is to conspiracy theories. At that time, one example that I used was the then-very recent death of an autism quack and antivaccinationist (but I repeat myself) who’s been big in the “autism biomed” movement for a long time and a regular […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

How “they” view “us”: Filthy pharma lucre buying senators and hit men

About a year and a half ago, I began an intermittent series that I called How “They” View “Us.” There are several posts in the series now. Basically, given the amount of nastiness directed at those of us who refute pseudoscience, in particular quackery and antivaccine pseudoscience, by those who believe in it, I tried […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The road to alternative medicine apostasy

I’ve been blogging for over a decade now, a fact that I find really hard to believe looking back on it right now. I’ve told the story before, but it’s worth briefly recounting again because doing so will explain why the story I’m about to discuss caught my attention. My “gateway drug,” if you will, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The return of J. B. Handley

He’s ba-ack. Remember J. B. Handley? He and his wife were the founders of the antivaccine crank group Generation Rescue (GR) back in the day. When I first started blogging, GR was new and shiny, with JB and his wife showing up all over the media blaming autism on mercury. In fact, I think it’s […]