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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture

Chris Christie and Rand Paul’s pandering to antivaccinationists: Is the Republican Party becoming the antivaccine party?

“I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice as well. So that’s a balance the government has to decide.” — NJ Governor Chris Christie, February 2, 2015 “The state doesn’t own the children. Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom.” — Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), February 2, […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

An Ontario court dooms a First Nations girl with cancer: Who’s to blame?

I figured that yesterday’s post about the First Nations girl in Ontario with lymphoblastic leukemia whose parents stopped her chemotherapy in favor of “traditional” medicine would stir up a bit of controversy, and so it did, albeit much more at my not-so-super-secret other blog, which featured an expanded version of this post. Don’t worry, you […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Naturopathy Politics Quackery Religion Science

An Ontario court dooms a First Nations girl with cancer

A few weeks ago, Steve Novella invited me on his podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, to discuss a cancer case that has been in the news for several months now. The case was about an 11-year-old girl with leukemia who is a member of Canada’s largest aboriginal community. Steve wrote about this case […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Quackery

The "Compassionate Freedom of Choice Act of 2014": Pernicious "health freedom" nonsense that degrades human research subject protections

I was torn about what to blog about today. There were lots of things floating around that caught my eye and appear worthy of of a little taste of Insolence, either Respectful or not-so-Respectful, so much so that I couldn’t decide. None of them really stuck out. Then I saw this news story pop up […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Quackery

Why are antivaccinationists so at home with Libertarianism?

Rats. Everyone’s blogging about all the studies showing (as if it needed to be shown yet again) that vitamin supplementation is not necessary for most people, nor does it decrease the risk of heart disease or cancer, and I can’t, at least not yet. Why not? Because my friggin’ university doesn’t subscribe to the Annals […]