Nominate your very own American loon!

I’d go with F. Edward Yazbak, who, like Al-Bayati, professes the idea that shaken baby syndrome is not real and instead is a cause of vaccine injury.

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/yazbak_sbs1.html

Or, on the other hand, we could put in anyone from the whale.to website.

There definitely should be a place for Dr. Leonard Horowitz, possibly in a subsection entitled “Harvard-trained loons”.

Horowitz, the editor-in-chief of Medical Veritas (a “journal” where Andrew Wakefield is reportedly also an editor) is an antivaxer who has an article currently circulating on the Internet in which he details a “depopulation” conspiracy involving Wall Street bankers and vaccines. Alleged conspirators in a plot to kill of 6 of every 7 people on the planet to benefit Big Pharma include Bill Gates, Congressman Henry Waxman, Fox News and the British royal family.

Horowitz is identified elsewhere on the Internet as “a Messianic Jew (who) routinely relays information from the Old and New Testaments concerning “God’s laws” that condemn the contamination of blood or injection of anything that might cause cancer through genetic mutations as is the case with bacterial and viral vaccines that relay genetic material to human cells.”

Oooh, the crazy is strong here.

Is this just loons residing in the U.S. or is it open to U.S. citizens residing elsewhere? (I guess since it includes Adams, the latter is the case.)

I would therefore nominate Meryl Dorey.

IDM: “Loon” is short for “lunatic.”

I have to note, I don’t think Trudeau’s a loon. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Two words:

Dana Ullman

Thank you for the suggestions. Most of the ones mentioned are on the list of “forthcoming” (we’ll try to do one a day). We’re doing it alphabetically, however, and haven’t quite gotten past “A” yet. In order to get to “Z” eventually we felt that we needed to restrict it to American loons, knowing that we’ll probably miss out on several … uhm … colorful characters.

@11,
I suggest doing a “once-over” to cover each letter, then going back and adding within those categories.

“How exactly would Big Pharma benefit from killing 86% of their customers?”

Don’t go trying to ruin a nice conspiracy theory with logic.

There is also Joe “Dr. Raichie is fat so don’t vote for her” Mercola, plus Tim “O’Ranter” Bolen.

Time Cube.

May I suggest that we eventually use the list to start a television programme (provisional title “American Loons”), patterned after “American Idol”, in which each week one of the loons is voted off the planet?

I nominate Dr. Jay Gordon.

Prometheus

Well, if exports like Mike Adams count, what about imports like Ken Ham or Ray Comfort? According to Wikipedia, Ham, at least, has been in the US long enough to get his citizenship although it doesn’t say if he did.

Oh, I have one: Dr. Rima Laibow. I’m having a bloggy battle elsewhere over her conspiracy-theory laden report on the Codex meeting.

Last time I saw her she was on Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory show on vaccines.

She bring the world of woo together. Woo glue.

I’d go with Dr. Offit. Oink oink…

Gawd, I don’t know where to start.

I doubt Schlafly came to any new conclusion based on the weight of the evidence. Every single opinion that man has seems to be based entirely on his political ideas. I can see him changing his mind solely based on RFK Jr’s beliefs.

Thanks, Dave. I think 2000 is about the time he faded away from the UseNet newsgroups that discussed vaccines. I know I tangled with his brother, Roger, at misc.kids.health on the subject.

Andy Schlafly is the legal counsel for the AAPS (which is pretty anti-vaccine), and probably still follows in his mom’s footsteps (a quick look at EagleForum shows that they are still anti-vaccine).

Looking at the Conservapedia entry for vaccine is quite trippy. It definitely shows it was edited by several people, which leaves it with a true passive aggressive feel. Check out the last section. First there is:

Despite the claims of certain high-profile figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,[29] there is no link between the Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) vaccine and Autism.[30][31] Despite these claims being repeatedly proved to be false and the proponents’ deceitful behavior (such as Andrew Wakefield, who received $623,623 from lawyers preparing to sue the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine without evidence), certain parties continue to push the MMR Vaccine-Autism link. It has recently come to light that the original study that began the controversy over the safety of vaccines was entirely falsified.[32]

… followed by:

Many people assume that official vaccine recommendations are based on recommendations of independent panels of experts after reviewing risk-benefit and cost-benefit analyses. They are not. The government panels are dominated by vaccine industry representatives and they have no consumer representatives. The meetings are not open to the public. They do not usually do much analysis, and tend to recommend whatever vaccines are available.

I feel your second look is more accurate. I’d have to see something more to show any Schlafly has changed their mind.

I do believe that both Jane Orient (AAPS) and Phyllis Schlafly (Eagle Forum) are American Loon good candidates (I remember when Jane Orient was flooding the Healthfraud listserv so much she was banned).

Surely Australians can get a place here, though we would have to call them either galahs or drongos in good old Aussie style (both are birds too, by the way).

If Ken Ham has become American, you’re welcome to him.

But if there’s an Australian list, we have plenty more – crazy shock jocks, extreme right-wing journalists, AGW deniers, one or two batty members of parliament and some of our madder church leaders. But I hesitate to name names, as Australia’s libel laws are like the UK’s.

What about our premier conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones? Also, can we add Don McLeroy?

crazy shock jocks, extreme right-wing journalists, AGW deniers, one or two batty members of parliament and some of our madder church leaders.

This is exactly what the list has to avoid.

People are not loons because they disagree with you or your mates. Right-wingers may be noxious, but that doesn’t automatically make them foolish (in fact I would argue that orthodox Marxists take on the right for looniness). Some AGW deniers have credentials in science that are far stronger than those of their opponents, and a better grasp of the detail too. And a firestorm potentially awaits anyone putting up religious leaders.

A loon is someone who believes something for reasons that are far beyond logic. They might be moderately liberal, but believe in time travel – Shirley Maclaine springs to mind. Or be AGW believers for entirely loony reasons – James Lovelock.

If you make the list solely of people who happen to disagree with you, then it is not a list of loons. It is a list of people with odd views who disagree with you.

Some loons will be, of course, right-wing or AGW-denier or extra-religious – but they cannot be selected merely because they are very vocal on those subjects. They need to actually have demonstratively illogical beliefs.

And full list must, disagreeably, include people who happen to be on your side of a debate.

23
Well, if exports like Mike Adams count, what about imports like Ken Ham or Ray Comfort? According to Wikipedia, Ham, at least, has been in the US long enough to get his citizenship although it doesn’t say if he did. Posted by: Inquisitive Raven | May 10, 2010 5:57 PM

****PLEASE!!!! Take Ray Comfort. He’s all yours America!

Chris@33:

I had not realized he was still Counsel for AAPS. The fact that Andy has a law degree, nevermind one from Harvard, still astounds me — hes not merely ignorant of the law, he appears to actively misunderstand it. I recall Roger and Jane as well. Roger struck me as the only one of trio with an even tenuous grasp of reality.

I had read the second paragraph that you quoted; I had chalked that one up to reflexive anti-government bias. Besides, I had qualified my description as “moderately positive.”

I am somewhat surprised by the talk page: I had always assumed that Conservapedia was Andy’s little fifedom, to see that level of internal disagreement is not what I expected. When I looked at it a few years ago, it seemed then that anyone who disagreed with Andy was booted.

Some AGW deniers have credentials in science that are far stronger than those of their opponents, and a better grasp of the detail too.

Err…no.

I’d like to nominate (Dr.) Andrew Moulden.

Oops, meant to link to Orac’s coverage of Moulden in all his loony glory

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2008/10/vaccines_cause_microvascular_strokes_that_cause_autism.php

May I respectfully (hah!) nominate the entire Maine Rethuglican Party?

I hereby nominate Larry Broxmeyer, MD (scary) who says that he “is already heralded as today’s single most brilliant and innovative medical investigator by colleagues here and abroad.”

Already! OMG! And is “here” his living room or the entire territory of American loons?

But thank heaven for Broxmeyer, or we wouldn’t know cancer, heart disease, AIDS, mad cow, and every other medical problem is caused by bacteria.

Joseph@ #4,like a lot of you,I’ve been following Best for years,and the more I see of him,themore convinced I am that oneday he might pull off something like Joseph Stack,the Austin FBI terrorist did.Fun’s fun,and all that,but something about this guy strikes me as deadly serious.

There is a strong right-wing anti government tone to a lot of the antivaxer rhetoric,and it would e very wise to keep an eye on them.

You might as well add Jesus Christ to your list. As I understand he healed a blind man without the assistance of an M.D., surgeon, or pharmaceuticals. Definitely suspect, that!

Now here’s a project of which I entirely approve: Its an Encyclopedia of American Loons. It’s up to seven as of this writing, including Mike Adams (of course!), who is characterized as “Complete loon, flamingly stupid, extremely paranoid, a zealot and a fraud; his influence is probably limited but given just a small base of followers he could wreak some havoc,”

The other Mike Adams (the far-right homophobic misogynistic nutjob who bloviates at Townhall.com and is on the faculty of UNC Wilmington) fits that description just as well.

My sister and I know about both Mike Adams’, and have decided that if your last name is Adams, you shouldn’t name your kid Michael.

Oh, and no one’s mentioned Lorraine Day yet?

I’m not certain you can really define lunacy until you’ve watched “Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.” At first, I thought former Governor Ventura was playing a tongue-in-cheek Stephen Colbert sort of parody, but then I finally figured out that: a)He was dead serious. b) Far, far far too many people don’t have the logic or reasoning skills to not take him seriously. c) The man has turned crazy paranoid into an art form.

Seriously, for craziness that defies all logic, check out this show. It’s almost like a guideline for how to write and define a properly nutty conspiracy theory.

Re Mark P @ #63

1. Most of the folks cited in the Wikipedia article are not climate scientists. The conspicuous exception is Prof. Richard Lindzen.

2. Many of the folks cited are also multiple deniers. For instance, Roy Spencer is a creationist who rejects the theory of evolution. Fred Singer has, at least in the past, strongly questioned the link between CFCs and ozone depletion and the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

3. As for Prof. Lindzen, his skepticism has been valuable in the past for keeping the climate modelers on their toes. Unfortunately, as the science of climate modeling has progressed, in large part due to the exponential increase in computer power, he is in danger of entering Peter Duesberg territory. As was cited by a commenter earlier, Duesberg was once a respected and productive scientist who was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on retroviruses. However, there is now little doubt that his HIV/AIDS denial has turned him into a nutcase.

Damn the “Time to Al Gore” in this thread was a disappointing 16 hours.

I just came across a horrible site (someone linked to it in NYTimes comments on a medical column). It has everything from anti-vax, to the “evil” Henry Waxman who is “trying to terrorize the supplement industry” to “chemo is poison”, and on and on and on. There are no clues as to who is behind this site, but maybe one of you know??

http://www.HealingNews.com/

At any rate, I nominate this site for best (worst) American Loon.

“Having read that article’s comments and plenty of anti-vax threads, I think there is a special subset of crank magnetism among Mama Bears protecting their precious snowflakes.”

Agreed!

@ djinnag: I’m going totally on word choices and spelling patterns(e.g.”color”,”organize”,etc.)but my best guess is *he*(it has to be “he”) is American.

Yeah, great stuff! These anti-vaccine kooks like Adams make me want to puke.

American loons?
If anyone would consider doing some research, then they will find that Mike Adams relies mostly on Science-based evidence to support his lunatic theories, so I guess that makes the diverse number of these Scientists as loons as well.
Perhaps if one of you took off your intellectual blinkers you may actually discover the truth for yourselves.
Aren’t Scientists supposed to have an open-mind?
Closed minds abound here.

Aren’t Scientists supposed to have an open-mind?

Everybody should be open-minded. But not to the point of having their brain falling off.

Closed minds abound here.

True. But those with a closed mind are not the ones you think.

John de Nugent, please. For complete non-connection with what most of us call “The real world”.