Tag: quackery

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Autism Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

Anke Zimmermann: Neonatal vitamin K shots cause behavioral problems that need to be treated with… homeopathic vitamin K!

Anke Zimmermann versus neonatal vitamin K
Anke Zimmermann versus neonatal vitamin K

Anke Zimmermann is a naturopath in Canada who treats autism who’s quackier than the usual naturopath. When last we saw her, she was using homeopathic rabid dog saliva to treat a fear of werewolves. This time around, she presents a “case report” in which she spent two and a half years treating a cranky child with various homeopathic remedies and concluded that her problems were due to the neonatal vitamin K shot. Naturally, that means to her, like any good homeopath, that the correct treatment is vitamin K diluted away to nothing.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

The Dunning-Kruger effect, antivaxers, and the arrogance of ignorance

Dunning-Kruger effect graph
Stylized graph summarizing the Dunning-Kruger effect. (Source.)

Thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect, many antivaxers think they know more about vaccines than doctors, scientists, and other experts in infectious disease, immunology, and vaccines. It is this arrogance of ignorance that fuels their antivaccine activism and makes them resistant to disconfirming evidence.

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Bad science Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop: Allergic to fact-checking

Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop: Allergic to fact-checking
Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop: Allergic to fact-checking

Earlier this week, the New York Times ran a fascinating feature about Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop. In it, we learn—surprise! surprise!—that Gwyneth Paltrow does not like fact-checking. We also learn that the criticism of Goop’s selling of pseudoscience and quackery has reached the point where Paltrow has given in and plans to hire a fact checker. Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that it will do no good and that skeptics will have as much work to do refuting Goop’s quackery after the fact-checker is hired as we do now.

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Bad science Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Clínica 0-19 and IDOI: Not making DIPG history in Monterrey (part 3 of 4)

DIPG as seen on scans
DIPG as seen on scans

This is the conclusion of my series on Clínica 0-19, the cancer clinic where Drs. Alberto Siller and Alberto Garcia see patients with DIPG, a deadly brain tumor, whom they treat at Hospital Angeles in Monterrey Mexico with an unproven combination of intra-arterial chemotherapy with up to 11 drugs and a poorly defined dendritic cell immunotherapy. Some people have asked me: What’s the harm? In this concluding post, I attempt to answer that question.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Bioethics Medicine Politics

A belated Fourth of July antivaccine rant about “zero tolerance vaccine laws,” courtesy of Barbara Loe Fisher

Fireworks over zero tolerance vaccine laws
Fireworks over zero tolerance vaccine laws

It may be two days after the 4th of July, but it’s never too late to deconstruct a holiday-inspired antivaccine rant about “zero tolerance vaccine laws” by the grand dame of the antivaccine movement.