Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Thoughts on Dr. Rashid Buttar and the failure of state medical boards

One of the most contentious and difficult aspects of trying to improve medical care in this country is enforcing a minimal “standard of care.” Optimally, this standard of care should be based on science- and evidence-based medicine and act swiftly when a practitioner practices medicine that doesn’t meet even a minimal requirement for scientific studies […]

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

Wait! It’s not mercury in vaccines! It’s mercury from coal burning power plants that causes autism! I’m so confused…

Yet another dubious study has been making the rounds of mercury militia websites and discussion forums. The study is being played up and touted by certain very excitable and scientifically not-too-bright militia members and woo-meisters like Mike Adams as some sort of vindication of the scientifically discredited hypothesis that mercury in vaccines somehow causes autism. […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Epi Wonk versus Mark and David Geier: Guess who wins?

There’s a new blog in town that I’ve been meaning to pimp. It’s a blog by a retired epidemiologist who got things started looking at the role of diagnostic substitution in autism diagnoses and argued that the autism “epidemic” is an artifact of changing diagnostic criteria. The blog is Epi Wonk, and it’s a good […]

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

Epi Wonk versus the Geiers, part II

Epi Wonk has completed part II of her deconstruction of the latest abuse of epidemiology and statistics by those pseudoscientists for the mercury militia, Mark and David Geier. (I commented on part I here): Pretty steep slopes and, therefore, apparently strong associations. But there’s no attempt to control for, or adjust for, the confounding effect […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

How does a scientist or doctor become a crank?

As a physician and scientists who’s dedicated his life to the application of science to the development of better medical treatments, I’ve often wondered how formerly admired scientists and physicians degenerate into out-and-out cranks. I’m talking about people like Peter Duesberg, who was once an admired scientist thought to be on track for a Nobel […]