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

Nuance versus certainty: The disadvantage scientists and physicians have in communicating risk

This post, although it is about an interview with a CDC scientist named William W. Thompson that resulted from the whole “CDC whistleblower” manufactroversy that’s been flogged relentlessly for the last two weeks, since antivaccine “heros” Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker released a despicable race-bating video flogging Hooker’s utterly incompetent reanalysis of a ten year […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Antivaccine journalist Sharyl Attkisson tries once again to convince us that vaccines cause autism

Sheryl Attkisson’s at it again promoting the conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism. Same as it ever was.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Tactics and tropes of the antivaccine movement (2014 edition)

With very few exceptions, antivaccinationists labor under the delusion that they are not antivaccine. The reason is simple. Deep down, at some level, even the most dedicated antivaccine advocate knows that society quite rightly views it as a bad thing to be against a preventative intervention that has arguably saved more lives than any other […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Antivaccinationists brief Congressional staffers, and the misinformation flows

The other day, I pointed out that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was following in the footsteps of the former chair of the committee, likely the quackiest, most antivaccine Congressman who ever served in the House of Representatives. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN). I guess that since […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Quackery

Katie Couric on the HPV vaccine: Antivaccine or irresponsible journalist? You be the judge!

I’m not really happy to have to write this post, but a blogger’s got to do what a blogger’s got to do. The reason is that Katie Couric has done something requires—nay, demands—a heapin’ helpin’ of Orac’s characteristic Respectful Insolence. Why should I give the proverbial rodent’s posterior about who gets the Insolence today? The […]