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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Get out the popcorn! Leslie Manookian attacks fellow antivaxer James Lyons-Weiler

I always love a good crank fight, and we seem to be witnessing an entertaining one, as Leslie Manookian attacks fellow antivaxer James Lyons-Weiler for not being antivaccine enough. Get out the popcorn!

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

Combining childhood vaccines at one visit is not safe? Wrong, wrong, wrong!

I sensed a disturbance in the antivaccine (i.e, the dark) side of the Force yesterday. No matter where I wandered online and on social media, I kept running into a new article, an article by Neil Z. Miller about vaccines. For example, the merry band of antivaccine propagandists over at Age of Autism seem to […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The violent rhetoric of the antivaccine movement: “Vaccine Holocaust” and potential impending attacks on journalists

Antivaxers are planning on publishing the personal information of employees of the Boston Herald because the paper published an editorial saying that promoting antivaccine misinformation among a vulnerable population should be a “hanging offense.” Meanwhile, overblown allusions to the Holocaust are going into overdrive. Same as it ever was.

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

Antivaccine activists rally around “Dr. Bob” Sears. Hilarity ensues.

As regular readers know, last Friday I was quite happy to relay the news that the Medical Board of California had finally acted against a rock star among the antivaccine movement, namely pediatrician “Dr. Bob” Sears. Dr. Sears (or Dr. Bob, as he likes to be called) rocketed to prominence among the vaccine-averse and downright […]

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

The fixed mindset of medical pseudoscience

One of the key principles of skepticism, particularly in medicine, is that correlation does not necessarily equal causation. I emphasize the word “necessarily” because sometimes skeptics go a bit too far and say that correlation does not equal causation. I myself used to phrase it that way for a long time. However, sometimes correlation does […]