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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine

WTF happened to The BMJ?

The BMJ recently published an “exposé” by Paul Thacker alleging patient unblinding, data falsification, and other wrongdoing by a subcontractor. It was a highly biased story embraced by antivaxxers, with a deceptively framed narrative and claims not placed into proper context, leading me to look into the broader question: WTF happened to The BMJ? (Updated and revised from a week ago.)

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Politics Quackery

AAPS sues for its “right” to promote antivaccine misinformation

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) sues Adam Schiff for the right to promote antivaccine misinformation, accomplishing nothing more than demonstrating that the group is indeed antivaccine.

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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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Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

On “doing your own research”

Ethan Siegel at Forbes argues that you “must not ‘do your own research.’” While the title grates, Siegel is correct that most of us are not really capable of “doing our own research” about most scientific and medical questions because we lack the necessary background. We must therefore be humble and be very, very careful about “doing our own research.”

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Evolution Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Andrew Wakefield predicts a “mass extinction” due to vaccines in the pages of—where else?—JPANDS

In a new article in JPANDS, the official journal of the crank medical organization Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), Andrew Wakefield argues that vaccines are leading to a mass extinction. Wakefield’s argument is so full of misinformation and pseudoscience that I can only marvel at how much Wakefield and AAPS belong together.