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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Did the experimental cancer drug 3-Bromopyruvate (3-BP) cause the deaths of cancer patients at a German alternative medicine clinic?

I’ve frequently written about various dubious and outright quack clinics in different parts of the word with—shall we say?—somewhat less rigorous laws and regulations than the US. Most commonly, given the proximity to the US, the clinics that have drawn my attention are located in Mexico, most commonly right across the border from San Diego […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery

After SB 277, online medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates are now for sale

After writing about the failure of state medical boards to discipline physicians who practice quackery and an apparent notable exception in Tennessee just yesterday, my attention was brought back to California and the topic of SB 277, the law enacted last year that, as of July 1 this year, eliminated non-medical exemptions to school vaccine […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture

Rob Schneider cries “FREEDOM!” to refuse vaccination

This weekend was the 4th of July, Independence Day. It’s the most patriotic holiday of all, at least for Americans. We celebrated it in the usual way, with parades, fireworks, the odd lost digit or two, and barbecues. Unfortunately, there’s another thing that the 4th of July inevitably brings on as well, and that’s the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Antivaxers lobbying Rep. Jason Chaffetz to investigate the CDC fawn over parents who let their child with bacterial meningitis die of medical neglect

Yesterday, I took note of a meeting of advocates and lawyers with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (OGR), which makes him a very powerful Congressman. The group that met with him included Del Bigtree, the producer of Andrew Wakefield’s antivaccine propagandafest of a “documentary” VAXXED: […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Popular culture

Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree: Privileged white males harming African-Americans with antivaccine propaganda

There’s always been a major thread of distrust of the medical profession in the African-American community, understandably so given the history of abuses such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which the natural progression of untreated syphilis was studied in African-American men for 40 years. It’s not just that experiment that’s responsible, either. During the […]