Category: Popular culture

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

An attempt to “Null”-ify Wikipedia on science

Wikipedia

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.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture

Rev. Al Sharpton’s Harlem antivaccine confab has been canceled!

Rev. Al Sharpton's Harlem Vaccine Forum

Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network was scheduled to host an antivaccine confab this Saturday. Then the press got wind of it. Let’s just say that it’s not happening any more—for now.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience

The Crown appeals Justice Clackson’s brain dead ruling acquitting David and Collet Stephan

Crown appeals Justice Terry Clackson's decision
Ezekiel Stephan: A victim of his parents' antivaccine and pro-quackery ideology.

Good news in the case of Ezekiel Stephan! The Crown has decided to appeal the acquittal of David and Collet Stephan.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience

Justice Clackson and his miscarriage of justice in the acquittal of David and Collet Stephan

Crown appeals Justice Terry Clackson's decision
Ezekiel Stephan: A victim of his parents' antivaccine and pro-quackery ideology.

On September 19, in a retrial ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada, Alberta Justice Terry Clackson issued a ruling acquitting David and Collet Stephan of failing to provide the necessities of life to their son Ezekiel, whose bacterial meningitis they had chosen to treat with quackery instead of medicine, leading to his death in 2012. The news reports showed that this was a very bad decision, but you have to read Justice Clackson’s actual decision to see that it’s an even worse decision than the news reports indicate, full of bad medicine, bad science, and even a hint of racism.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

The tragic death of Evee Clobes: How antivaxers recruit grieving mothers to their cause

Evee Clobes
Evee Clobes on a billboard.

Evee Clobes was a six month old who died due to SIDS. Unfortunately, antivaxers used the grief of her mother Caitlin to recruit her to their cause. It’s an all too common tactic, because antivaxers know that grieving mothers are their most potent messengers.