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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Popular culture

Vaccine Injury Epidemic (VIE) Event: Antivaxers protest the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986

Yesterday, antivaxers held a protest event on the Mall in Washington, DC that they called the Vaccine Injury Epidemic (VIE) Event. Misnformation flowed fast and furious.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture

Antivaxers are targeting minorities with their misinformation and conspiracy theories

Orac has been writing about this a long time. Finally, the mainstream media are noticing how antivaxers target minorities with their message.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Naturopathy Politics Popular culture Quackery

Ezekiel Stephan’s father attacks the Canadian Medical Association

Ezekiel Stephan was a toddler who died tragically in 2012 because his parents did not treat his bacterial meningitis with medicine, but rather with quackery. His parents were convicted, then acquitted on appeal. A week ago, his father attacked the Canadian Medical Association for reporting on a petition doctors sent to the court urging that courts overturn the acquittal.

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Cancer Medicine Popular culture

A tourist finds breast cancer after a thermal scan at Camera Obscura. That doesn’t mean thermography works.

Bal Gill saw a hot spot on her breast on a thermal image she had taken at Camera Obscura in Edinburgh. This led her to see her doctor, who diagnosed breast cancer. Although a happy coincidence, this incident does not mean that thermography is an effective modality to detect occult breast cancer.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

An attempt to “Null”-ify Wikipedia on science

Love it or hate it, Wikipedia is a main go-to rough and ready source of information for millions of people. Although I’ve had my problems with Wikipedia and used to ask whether it could provide reliable information on medicine and, in particular, alternative medicine and vaccines, given that anyone can edit it, I now conclude that Wikipedia must be doing OK, at least in these areas. After all, some of the highest profile promoters of alternative and “integrative” medicine hate Wikipedia, to the point of attacking it and concocting conspiracy theories about it.