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

Antivaxers marched on Washington last week. It was less than impressive.

A few dozen antivaccine activists descended upon Washington, DC to protest and lobby their legislators. The protest itself was not impressive, but pro-science advocates shouldn’t let this pathetic march lead them to be complacent. Antivaxers are meeting with legislators, and President Trump is sympathetic to their aims.

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

Does combatting quackery and pseudoscience through rational argument and ridicule work?

As hard as it is to believe, I’ve been at this blogging thing for 12 years now. In fact, it’s been so long that this year I didn’t even remember to mention it when it happened nearly two weeks ago. Over that time period, I’ve dealt with a large number of conspiracy theories. Indeed, skeptics […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine

Does the flu vaccine cause miscarriages?

A recent study claims to have found a link between influenza vaccination and miscarriage, and antivaxers are rejoicing. The study itself suffers mightily from post hoc subgroup analyses and small numbers in the subgroup, so much so that even its authors don’t really believe its results.

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking World War II

The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 22: The Godwin of “We didn’t know”

This post is a bit later than usual, but there’s a good reason for it. Last night, I was in full food coma, having consumed the traditional Thanksgiving feast, along with a fair amount of wine. Besides, even a sometimes arrogant bloviator like myself, who uses a pseudonym based on a fictional, near-all-knowing supercomputer from […]

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

Trolling the antivaccine trolls

Craig Egan is a man with a mission. He’s trolling the antivaccine trolls to promote science, and he’s been very successful at it.