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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Is there a reproducibility “crisis” in biomedical research? (2017 edition)

About a week ago, I happened upon a number of stories about a study and project that demonstrates a key difference between science and pseudoscience. They had titles like, “Rigorous replication effort succeeds for just two of five cancer papers” (Science), “Cancer reproducibility project releases first results: An open-science effort to replicate dozens of cancer-biology […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

First China, next the world: The Chinese government gives a big boost to traditional Chinese medicine, just like Chairman Mao did

Everything old is new again in China. Just as Chairman Mao promoted the “integration” of traditional Chinese medicine with “Western” medicine 65 years ago, the Chinese government today is doing the same thing for the same reasons.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Inauguration day: How President Trump could undermine trust in vaccines

In a (very) few short hours, Donald Trump will take the oath of office and become the 45th President of the United States. I realize that I don’t normally blog about politics, at least other than that related to medicine, but I make no bones about it. I’m dreading 12 Noon ET on January 20, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Antivaxers are collecting stories of “vaccine injury” to send to Donald Trump to change federal vaccine policy

\I’ve written quite a bit about how our soon-to-be President Donald Trump has consistently expressed antivaccine views over the years, such as his oft-stated (on Twitter and elsewhere) beliefs that it’s a “monster” shot that causes autism and infants get “too many” vaccines “too soon.” I’ve heard Trump supporters who are pro-vaccine pooh-pooh these statements […]

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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

No, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is NOT a “vaccine skeptic.” He is antivaccine.

This week hasn’t been a particularly good week for science. It started out on Monday with news of the social media storm from over the weekend over a blatantly antivaccine screed published the Friday before by the director of The Cleveland Clinic Wellness Clinic. Then, towards the middle of the week, we learned that our […]