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

Help vaccinate Las Vegas!

If there’s one thing that I’ve found that’s simultaneously gratifying and somewhat infuriating over the last year or so, it’s that the skeptical movement has finally really noticed that anti-vaccination movement in a big way. Those of us who’ve been on the blogospheric front lines for the last few years have sometimes been frustrated that […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Quackery Television

A credulous treatment of the mercury militia on PBS

The Skeptical Surfer informs me of a rather disturbing programming decision by PBS: I first caught wind of the autism film “Beautiful Son” through the surfing community. Surf filmmaker Don King has an autistic son. Being a filmmaker, Don always has a video camera at hand and has documented his “journey” of discovering that his […]

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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Politics Religion

Abortion and breast cancer: The Chicago Tribune feeds the myth

I approach this topic with a bit of trepidation. I say this not because I’m unsure that I’m correct in my assessment of the article that I’m about to apply some Respectful Insolence™ to. Rather, it’s because the last time I brought up anything having to do with abortion, it got ugly. The topic is […]

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

Dan Olmsted joins Mike Adams in abusing Breast Cancer Awareness month for his own purposes

Having gotten into the whole idea of blogging about peer-reviewed research yesterday and even using a spiffy new icon to denote that that’s what I’m doing, originally I had planned on looking up another interesting article or pulling one from my recent reading list and blogging about it. Then, realizing that Breast Cancer Awareness Month […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Closing the year on a great note: The mercury militia’s “experts” slapped down

What better way to finish off 2007 than to look at a most amusing judicial ruling on the admissibility of some of the favorite “expert” witnesses trotted out to try to demonstrate a link between mercury in vaccines and autism. It was issued on December 21 in the case of Blackwell v. Sigma Aldrich, Inc. […]