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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Quackery

Why is antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. meeting with government health and science officials months after meeting with President Trump?

In January, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. bragged about having met with President-Elect Donald Trump about chairing a presidential commission on vaccine safety. In the intervening eight months, no commission has materialized, but, if you can believe his account, Kennedy has been meeting with government officials to promote his antivaccine views at the behest of the Trump administration. As long as that continues, pro-science advocates can’t afford to rest easy.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Brian Hooker’s antivaccine pseudoscience has risen from the dead to threaten children again

Remember Brian Hooker’s pseudoscience-laden “study” linking the MMR vaccine with autism in African-American boys? It’s back from the dead! Even more hilariously, it’ was published in that rag of a “journal” for all things right wing conspiracy pseudoscience, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

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

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Robert De Niro issue a $100,000 vaccine “challenge.” It’s every bit as much as scam as Jock Doubleday’s “vaccine challenge” was a decade ago.

Longtime vaccine advocates will likely remember Jock Doubleday’s “vaccine challenge,” in which he offered up to $150,000 to anyone who would drink a body-weight calibrated dose of the vaccine additives in the childhood vaccine schedule. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Robert De Niro have teamed up to issue a challenge every bit as nonsensical from a scientific standpoint, with the added bonus of its being a scam as well.

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

And so the dismantling of public health begins: Donald Trump meets with antivaccine ideologue Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to discuss “vaccine safety” and autism

I remember when I first heard on Twitter yesterday afternoon that our President-Elect, Donald Trump, was going to meet with longtime antivaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Remembering how Trump had met with antivaccine “hero” Andrew Wakefield before the election and how after the election antivaccine activists were practically salivating over the thought of what […]

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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 […]