Tag: antivaccine

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

Massive measles outbreak in Romania: A warning to the US?

Bran Castle, Romania
Bran Castle, Romania

Beginning a little over a year ago, Romania has been enduring a massive measles outbreak. The cause is familiar: Low MMR uptake below what is needed for herd immunity. Is this a warning to the US?

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

The antivaccine conspiracy theory narrative: You want it darker?

A hero with heroism
How antivaxers view themselves—and us.

Every story must have a victim, a hero, and a villain, and the central antivaccine conspiracy myth is no different.

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

In the era of Donald Trump, will the states save us from antivaxers?

It's in the states where the real sausage gets made with respect to vaccine policy.

There might be an antivaxer in the White House right now, but it’s at the state level where vaccine policy and school vaccine mandates are decided.

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Hallelujah! The mainstream press finally notices quackademic medicine!

Imagine those buildings are an academic hospital. This is what's happening in medical academia.

I’ve been writing a long time about a phenomenon that I like to refer to as “quackademic medicine,” defined as the infiltration into academic medical centers and medical school of unscientific and pseudoscientific treatment modalities that are unproven or disproven. Few seem to listen. That’s why it’s reassuring to see a mainstream news publication get it (mostly) right about this phenomenon.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

How “aborted fetal cells” contributed to vaccines preventing billions of cases of disease and many million deaths

Antiabortion antivaccine activists like to claim that “aborted fetal cells” in vaccines mean that vaccines are contaminated products of evil. In reality, there are no “aborted fetal cells” in vaccines. A cell line derived from an aborted fetus in 1962 did, however, lead to huge advances in vaccine technology and the prevention of many millions of deaths worldwide.