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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture

Yet another antivaccine rally, yet another yawn

If there’s one thing that’s amusing about the antivaccine movement, it’s the disconnect between its members’ perception of their own importance and the reality of it, which is that they tend to be a pretty pathetic, risible band. They post their blogs, full of the rage of Dunning-Kruger, thinking that they are putting forth the […]

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

Revealing the true face of the antivaccine movement

Late last week, something happened that I never would have predicted, and it’s all due to how the politics of the issue changed in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year. The state that contains some of the most famous pockets of low vaccine uptake and some of the most famous antivaccine […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

In memoriam: lilady

As I write this, I am sadder than I have been for a long time. I recently learned that a frequent commenter here, a woman whose efforts on behalf of children’s health I admired greatly, has passed away. I’m referring to the commenter who went by the ‘nym lilady and sometimes signed her comments with […]

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

Twitter as an amplifier of antivaccine messages

Before 2005, I did pay attention to the antivaccine movement, but it wasn’t one of my biggest priorities when it comes to promoting science-based medicine. That all changed when Robert F. Kennedy published his incredibly conspiracy-packed black whole of antivaccine pseudoscience entitled Deadly Immunity. Sadly, almost exactly ten years later, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. hasn’t […]

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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Dr. Lipson versus Dr. Brownstein: Science versus antivaccine misinformation and fear mongering in my own back yard

It always irritates me when I discover a new antivaccine crank in my state; so you can imagine how irritated I become when I discover one right in my very city (OK, metropolitan area). When that happens, it becomes a bit more personal than my usual mission to refute antivaccine misinformation. So I was most […]