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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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Medicine

It’s worse than I thought

A while back, I mentioned how the budget proposed in the President’s budget for the NIH for fiscal year 2007 was flat. It turns out that, for those of us in the field of cancer research, it’s worse than that. Making the rounds at our cancer institute is an e-mail from one of the higher-ups, […]

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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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Medicine

Tangled Bank #48

Tangled Bank #48 has been posted at fellow ScienceBlogger Tara’s Aetiology. Go forth and enjoy the best the science blogosphere has to offer. While I’m carnival barking, don’t forget that the deadline for the Skeptics’ Circle is tonight. The Circle is scheduled to appear at The Huge Entity (cue many puns and jokes using the […]

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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 […]