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

The Geiers go dumpster-diving yet again

Mark and David Geier, the père et fils duo of antivaccine pseudoscientists once again go dumpster diving in the VAERS database, using it for purposes for which it was not intended to “prove” vaccines cause autism.

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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Mercury and autism: RFK Jr. drops another stinky one on the blogosphere

I had wanted to let this cup pass, but couldn’t, not after several readers e-mailed it to me and I went and experienced its inanity first hand. As Michael Corleone said in The Godfather, Part III: “Just when I thought I was finally out, they drag me back in again!” In this case, it was […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

I was right: The teacher admits that Airborne doesn’t work

A while back, I wrote about Airborne, the “herbal” concoction designed by a schoolteacher that is touted as preventing colds and the flu if taken preemptively or lessening their severity if taken early on in the course of a cold. I concluded that there was no evidence that it did what Victoria Knight-McDowell, a schoolteacher […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Opinions without expertise

While I’m busy plugging blogs I like, I thought I’d mention that A Photon in the Darkness is another one of my favorite skeptical blogs. Lately, in all the turmoil over my move to ScienceBlogs, I failed to mention two good pieces that Prometheus has posted in the last few days: Why anecdotes aren’t data […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Quackery

Bird flu weirdness

What is it about the Avian flu that seems to inspire all sorts of wild craziness? Yes, the avian flu has the potential to be a big problem in humans (but is not one yet–so far its main lethal affect has been in birds). Yes, if it ever acquired the ability to be transmitted from […]