Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Television

Same as it ever was: Antivaccine crank Bill Maher loves him some HIV/AIDS quackery

I know I must be getting older because of Friday nights. I also know that I’m getting older because (1) there was no new post yesterday and (2) even today this post will look familiar to a significant number of our readership. Mea culpa, but trying to put the finishing touches on two R01 grants […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Skepticism/critical thinking Television

Ben Swann on the “#CDCtruth” rally: Regurgitating antivaccine talking points

Before yesterday, I had never heard of Ben Swann. Apparently he is the new anchor for the early evening news broadcast of the local Atlanta CBS affiliate, having joined the station in June. Apparently he is also prone to antivaccine conspiracy theories, which is a very bad thing to be prone to as a reporter […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking Television

Dr. Oz promises to stop promoting pseudoscience. Should we believe him?

Regular readers of this blog will find it no surprise that I don’t think much of Dr. Mehmet Oz. The reason, of course, is that his daily television show, The Dr. Oz Show, has been a font of misinformation about medicine almost since it began airing six years ago. It’s not for nothing that I […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Television

Jim Carrey’s antivaccine rants are nothing new (a blast from the past, featuring Fire Marshal Bill)

In the wake of the passage of SB 277 into law in California, the antivaccine contingent went full mental jacket. SB 277, as you might recall, eliminates non-medical exemptions (i.e., religious and personal belief exemptions) to school vaccine mandates. One thing watching the crazy was good for, at least for me, was to note how […]

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

America’s quack counterattacks by calling his critics industry hacks

Last week, a group of ten doctors led by Dr. Henry Miller, most of whom were affiliated either with the Hoover Institution or the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)—or both—wrote a letter to Lee Goldman, MD, the Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia University complaining that Dr. Mehmet […]