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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Movies Popular culture

A male BRCA mutation carrier “emulates” Angelina Jolie by having preventative surgery to remove his prostate? Not so fast there, pardner…

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. OK, I know I use that line entirely too much, but I also don’t really care. When something fits, wear it. And if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit. Sorry, I’ll stop. I’m in a weird mood as I write this. But it’s […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Calling out false “balance” on vaccines and autism

Manufactroversy. It’s wonderful, made-up word that describes a phenomenon so aptly, so brilliantly, that I like to use it all the time. Basically the word describes a manufactured controversy that is motivated by either extreme ideology (virtually always crank ideology) and/or profit that is intentionally stoked to create public confusion about a scientific issue that […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Popular culture

The quack view of preventing breast cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie

I should have known it. I should have known that the reaction wouldn’t take very long. I should have known it based on prior history. The news story to which I am referring is, of course, the revelation yesterday in the New York Times editorial page by Angelina Jolie that she had decided to undergo […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Gary Null and Sayer Ji love me! They really love me!

Gary Null loves me! He really loves me! Well, maybe not Gary Null, but Sayer Ji. You remember Sayer Ji, don’t you? He’s the guy who runs GreenMedInfo.com who showed up on my skeptical radar when he claimed that vaccines are “transhumanism” that subverts evolution. (Seriously, you can’t make stuff like this up.) On another […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture

We’ll take the money you can bring us, even if you’re antivaccine

I’m sure this is a case where someone thought it was a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s an astoundingly bad idea: The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation is bringing McCarthy to town March 2 to headline its annual Bust a Move fundraiser as a guest fitness instructor. But the actress, author and […]