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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture

The Canary Party and Rob Schneider versus the Vaccine Court: Guess who wins?

My goodness, when it rains, it pours, to use a cliche. (And I’m not about anything if not throwing in the odd cliche in my writing from time to time.) Just yesterday, I discussed the resurrection of an antivaccine zombie meme, namely the claim that Maurice Hilleman admitted that the polio vaccine that was contaminated […]

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

Is Sharyl Attkisson feeling the heat over her irresponsible reporting of the Alex Spourdalakis case?

Yesterday, I did a bit of navel gazing about how cranks, quacks, and antivaccinationists have a penchant for attacking skeptics at work in order to try to intimidate them into silence. Reading the post over again, I realize that it came across perhaps more whiny than it should have, but I guess I was just […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

Jenny McCarthy and the selling of e-cigarettes

I’ve made no secret of my opinion of Jenny McCarthy. To put it mildly, I don’t think that much of her, particularly her flaming stupid when it comes to her promotion of dangerous antivaccine nonsense. To her, vaccines are chock full of “toxins” and all sorts of evil humors that will turn your child autistic […]

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

How Stanislaw Burzynski became Burzynski the Brave Maverick Doctor, part 1

Time really does fly. It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a week since I gave my big (to me, at least) talk at TAM. It’s equally hard to believe that it’s been more than a week since I had the honor of being kicked out of Penn Jillette’s Private Rock & Roll Bacon […]

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History Medicine Politics Popular culture Science

Score one for the antiscience cranks in Portland on fluoridation

Chalk one up for the forces of anti-science, quackery, and pseudoscience. The citizens of Portland, Oregon just handed them a huge victory the other day when they once again rejected water fluoridation in a referendum: Fluoride supporters, it appeared, had everything going for them. Five Portland city commissioners had voted to add fluoride to the […]