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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

“Piltdown” medicine: Andrew Wakefield’s scientific fraud was worse than previously thought

Pity poor Andrew Wakefield. 2010 was a terrible year for him, and 2011 is starting out almost as bad. In February 2010, the General Medical Council in the U.K. recommended that Wakefield be stripped of his license to practice medicine in the U.K. because of scientific misconduct related to his infamous 1998 case series published […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

As Andrew Wakefield’s defenders circle the wagons

If my post today is a bit shorter on the usual Respectfully and not-so-Respectfully Insolent verbiage that you’ve come to know and love (or hate), I hope you’ll forgive me. It’s hard not to sit back, rest a bit, and enjoy the spectacle of Andrew Wakefield being pilloried in the press in the wake of […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Jenny McCarthy weighs in about Andrew Wakefield–with predictable results

The fallout from Brian Deer’s further revelations of the scientific fraud that is anti-vaccine hero Andrew Wakefield continues apace. Remember last week, when I wrote about the first article of the two-part series enumerating the various ways that Andrew Wakefield committed scientific fraud in putting together the case series that became the basis of his […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Andrew Wakefield: In it for the money all along?

One of the favorite attacks favored by advocates of pseudoscience, particularly advocates of the sort of pseudoscience favored by proponents of “alternative” medicine, particularly the more militant ones who really, really detest conventional, science-based medicine, is to poison the well with a pre-emptive ad hominem attack that implies that defenders of science-based medicine are somehow […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Misdirected criticism by someone from whom I would never have expected it

It is with some trepidation and more than a little regret that I begin writing this piece. The reason for my hesitation is that, by doing so, no matter what I say I’ll be inserting myself into what appears to be a disagreement among people all of whom I admire very much. I don’t really […]