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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Another young woman with cancer, lured into quackery by Ty Bollinger

It sucks to be diagnosed with cancer at any age, but it especially sucks to be young and diagnosed with cancer. The prompt application of science-based cancer treatment is important for anyone with cancer, but it’s especially important for young people with cancer, because they have the most life-years to lose if they dawdle or […]

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

Raging Bullsh*t: Robert De Niro is the latest celebrity antivaccinationist to spew pseudoscientific nonsense to the world

Celebrities who support pseudoscience and quackery are worse than regular, run-of-the-mill believers because they have a much larger soapbox than any of us do. I have a pretty healthy blog traffic for a medical blog, but even I don’t reach more than maybe 10,000 people a day. Even at my not-so-super-secret other blog, we only […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Better late than never: Orac comments on the hijacking of evidence-based medicine

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of John Ioannidis. (If you don’t believe me, just type Ioannidis’ name into the blog search box and see how many posts you find.) Over the last couple of decades, Ioannidis has arguably done more to reveal the shortcomings of the medical research enterprise that undergirds our treatments, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Computers and social media History Holocaust Holocaust denial Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

An antivaccine activist explains how she uses Facebook reporting algorithms to harass and silence pro-science bloggers

I wish this post were an April Fools Day joke, but it is not. Three weeks ago, Skeptical Raptor and I wrote posts describing how a particularly vicious, nasty antivaccine troll named Heather Murray had successfully gamed Facebook reporting algorithms intended to report abuse in order to silence pro-science bloggers. It is, unfortunately, a tactic […]

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

Tribeca Film Festival wrap-up: Andrew Wakefield’s “brilliance” and spies and Nazis, oh my!

Whenever a story like Robert De Niro’s decision to choose an antivaccine film by Andrew Wakefield for screening at his prestigious Tribeca Film Festival followed by his decision to drop the film like the proverbial hot potato upon being shown just how full of misinformation, distortions, and pseudoscience the film is shows up, I not […]