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Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Vani Hari, a.k.a. “The Food Babe,” doubles down on the misinformation in her response to the New York Times

To put it mildly, I’m not a big fan of Vani Hari, who has achieved Internet notoriety as a highly misguided “food activist” better known as The Food Babe. As The Food Babe, Hari has improbably become a minor celebrity by attacking food companies over various ingredients their products and, unfortunately, seems poised for more. […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Andrew Wakefield: Attracting antivaccine cranks like moths to a flame since 1998

If there’s a story I neglected to mention last week that I should have, it’s that Andrew Wakefield is being a bully again, trying to use legal intimidation to silence his critics, namely Forbes.com blogger Emily Willingham. Of course, Wakefield has done this so many times that the fact that he’s done it once again […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust denial Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

How “they” view “us” (2014 edition)

A week ago or so, I was perusing my Google Alerts, along with various blogs and news websites, looking for something to blog about, when I noticed a disturbance in the pseudoscience Force. It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed many times before from a wide variety of cranks and quacks, but it all boils down to […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Medicine Quackery

The “Health Ranger” Mike Adams engages in legal thuggery against a critic

I hadn’t really planned on writing again about everyone’s favorite conspiracy theorist and promoter of quackery, Mike Adams, at least not so soon after the last time I did it, which was only last week after Adams appeared on Dr. Oz’s daytime television show to push his “laboratory.” Adams, as you might recall, goes by […]

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Blogging Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

On “Orac,” Isis, pseudonymity, and anonymity

And now for something completely different. There was a time when, as a blogger, I would have been instantly aware of an incident like the one I’m about to discuss, instantly aware of it and all over it within a day. That it’s been a few days since this happened, and I remained blissfully unaware […]