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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

The “no debate” debate

I like the word “manufactroversy.” It’s a lovely made up word that combines the two words “manufactured controversy” and is, to boil it down, defined as the art of creating a controversy where none really exists. In the case of science, it’s the concerted effort to make it seem as though there is a legitimate […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

And now death by Gardasil? Again, not so fast…

I guess this is in effect part two of yesterday’s post. Regular daily readers (and you are a regular daily reader, aren’t you?) will remember that yesterday I commented on the recent uptick in anti-Gardasil vaccine rhetoric coming from the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism and other sources, in the process deconstructing speculation masquerading […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Fundraising for antivaccine research

If there’s one thing that antivaccine cranks tell us that has a grain of truth in it, it’s to be wary of pharmaceutical companies and their influence. Their mission is, of course, to make profits, and sometimes the search for profits can lead them to do things that are less than savory. Of course, antivaccine […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

J.B. Handley surprises…partially

I’m pretty hard on anti-vaccine activists. I know that. One in particular provokes my ire because of his particular brand of loutishness, intimidation, and stupidity. I’m talking about, of course, J.B. Handley, founder of Generation Rescue and blogger at its propaganda arm Age of Autism. As much as JB and I detest each other though, […]

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Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Progress mixed with hype in personalized medicine

“Personalized medicine.” You’ve probably heard the term. It’s a bit of a buzzword these days and refers to a vision of future medicine in which therapies are much more tightly tailored to individual patients than they currently are. That’s not to say that as physicians we haven’t practiced personalized medicine before; certainly we have. However […]