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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

And so the dismantling of public health begins: Donald Trump meets with antivaccine ideologue Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to discuss “vaccine safety” and autism

I remember when I first heard on Twitter yesterday afternoon that our President-Elect, Donald Trump, was going to meet with longtime antivaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Remembering how Trump had met with antivaccine “hero” Andrew Wakefield before the election and how after the election antivaccine activists were practically salivating over the thought of what […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust denial Medicine Paranormal Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

2016: The year bullshit was weaponized

Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, quackery, and belief in things that can be objectively demonstrated not to be true have always been with us. Unfortunately, 2016 was the year that this bullshit was weaponized, and we may never recover.

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

The crank medical organization to which HHS nominee Dr. Tom Price belongs lays down a heaping helping of antivaccine pseudoscience

Dr. Tom Price, nominee for HHS Secretary, belongs to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which just laid down a heaping helping of antivaccine pseudoscience.

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

This could be the most ludicrous version of the “toxins” gambit I’ve ever seen

One of the oldest antivaccine tropes that first encountered is one that I like to call the “toxins gambit.” Basically, this is an antivaccine lie that portrays vaccines as being laden with all manner of “toxins” because they have—gasp!—chemicals with scary sounding names and even some chemicals that are toxic. The lie derives from the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Schadenfreude: At the FDA, it looks as though Donald Trump is about to sorely disappoint his antivaccine supporters

I’ve seen it noted that our new President-Elect seems to be selecting his cabinet officers and directors of federal bureaucracies based on how much they oppose the mission of the department they are supposed to head. For instance, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, he picked an orthopedic surgeon who belongs to […]