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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Anti-vaccine activism, not autism activism, part 2

You know, when Age of Autism starts announcing its yearly “people of the year” awards, there’s always a lot of blog fodder there to be had. Given that this is the time of year when I ramp the blog down a bit and, trying to relax a little, don’t spend as much time doing detailed […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Suppression of speech through legal intimidation, anti-vaccine edition: Barbara Loe Fisher sues Dr. Paul Offit, Amy Wallace, and Condé Nast for libel

In general, one of the biggest differences between those defending science-based medicine and those defending pseudoscience, quackery, and anti-science is that science inculcates in its adherents a culture of free and open debate. In marked contrast, those advocating pseudoscience tend to cultivate cultures of the echo chamber. Examples abound and include discussion forums devoted to […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Gut disorders and autism: A new consensus statement

One of the key claims of the “autism biomedical” movement is that something about autism derives from or is exacerbated by the gut; i.e., that there is some sort of link between GI problems, particularly inflammatory diseases of the GI tract, and autism. Although I may not be as versed in the history of this […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The price exacted by the anti-vaccine movement

As 2009 ended and 2010 began, I made a vow to myself to try to diversify the topics covered on this blog. Part of that vow was to try to avoid writing about vaccines and the anti-vaccine movement for more than a couple of days in a row. Unfortunately, even in the middle its very […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Religion Surgery

Regarding Dr. Mehmet Oz: Whoops. Maybe I spoke too soon about vaccines

Yesterday, I expressed dismay at how Dr. Mehmet Oz, the protege of Oprah Winfrey who now has his own popular syndicated daily show, recently named the quackery known as reiki as number one in his list of “Dr. Oz’s ulimate alternatie medicine secrets,” leading me to characterize him as having “gone completely over to the […]