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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

“Interesting times,” thanks to a confluence of anti-vaccine pseudoscience

An old Chinese combined proverb and curse is said to be, “May you live in interesting times.” Certainly, with respect to vaccines, the last few years have been “interesting times.” Unfortunately, this week times are about to get a lot more “interesting” as the Autism One quackfest descends upon Chicago beginning today. Featuring prominently in […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Someone didn’t nail the coffin shut: Andrew Wakefield returns to the public eye

He’s baa-aack. You knew he couldn’t stay gone for long, I’m sure. He’s just like the zombie who rises again just as the hero turns his back, thinking the zombie dead, or the blond terrorist in Die Hard who appeared to have met his end hanging from a chain only to appear later in the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Quoth Mark “not a doctor, not a scientist” Blaxill: “Help, help, Andy Wakefield’s being repressed!”

Help! Help! I’m being repressed. Somehow, that is the image I have gotten in the three weeks since the very last shred of Andrew Wakefield’s facade of scientific respectability tumbled. As you may recall, at the end of January, the British General Medical Council found Andrew Wakefield, the man whose trial lawyer-funded, breathtakingly incompetent, and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Shifting goalposts, shifting stories

On Wednesday, Steve Novella did a nice analysis of the recent study showing that signs of autism can be detected as early as six months of age. However, it was flawed by one clear misstatement, which was brought to his attention in the comments and which he then promptly corrected. Not that that stopped our […]

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

J.B. Handley wants to touch Andrew Wakefield’s monkey(s)

“Would you like to touch my monkey? Touch him! Love him!“ J. B. Handley wants to touch see Andrew Wakefield’s monkeys. How do I know this? Well, there’s just the little matter of his entitling his most recent excretion of flaming stupidity Show me the monkeys! and repeating “Show me the monkeys!” eleven times in […]