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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

Chad Hermann and Todd Wolynn: On the nature of the antivaccine movement and lighting the signal fires of Gondor

Chad Hermann and Todd Wolynn published a study about antivaxers that basically confirmed a lot of what we know about how they use Facebook to harass their perceived enemies. More important is the work they’re doing provide a way for those targeted by antivaxers for harassment to light signal fires to attract reinforcements.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience

Harassment of doctors and grieving mothers: A feature, not a bug, of the antivaccine movement

Harassment of its opponents is a feature, not a bug, of the antivaccine movement, even if the victims are grieving mothers. The idea is to harass and intimidate their opponents into silence.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

Ezekiel Stephan: Justice denied, quackery triumphant

In 2012, a 19 month old boy named Ezekiel Stephan died of bacterial meningitis because his parents believe in quackery over medicine. They were convicted, but a new trial ordered by the Supreme Court has now acquitted them in a truly horrific ruling.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

The Republican Party has become the antivaccine party

Contrary to the stereotype of antivaccinationists as hippy-dippy left wing granola crunchers, in actuality antivaccine pseudoscience is the pseudoscience is the pseudoscience that knows no political boundaries. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that both parties are equivalent. Unfortunately, thanks to the co-opting of conservative activism by antivaxers, the Republican Party in 2018 has become the antivaccine party.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Bioethics Medicine Pseudoscience

False analogies and pseudoscience as “moral arguments” against the use of fetal cell lines to manufacture vaccines

Antivaxers frequently object to the use of fetal cell lines to manufacture vaccines on “moral” grounds. Über-quack Joe Mercola lays down some astonishingly bad moral arguments based on pseudoscience.