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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Skepticism/critical thinking

The antivaccine movement resurrects the zombie that is the “autism epidemic” (2014 edition)

As I just mentioned a week ago, there used to be a time when I dreaded Autism Awareness Month, which begins tomorrow. The reason was simple. Several years ago to perhaps as recently as three years ago, I could always count on a flurry of stories about autism towards the end of March and the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

In which reporters are lectured by a fake "media expert" and "autism advocate"

After the last couple of days of depressing posts about the utter failure of the FDA to do its job protecting cancer patients from the likes of Stanislaw burzynski, it’s time to move on. Unfortunately, the first thing that caught my eye as I sat down to blog last night not only fried my irony […]

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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Autism clusters and "toxins"

Time to get back to business after yesterday’s festivities. One of the items of Gospel Truth among the “autism biomed” movement, which consists of people who fervently believe that autism is caused by some sort of external “toxin,” infection, or vaccines and that subjecting children to various forms of quackery designed either to “detoxify” or […]

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Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Release the Kraken! (I mean antivaccine “Thinkers.”)

Oh, dear. I didn’t think I’d be writing about that wretched hive of Dunning-Kruger scum and quackery, the most inaptly named website and blog of all time, The Thinking Moms’ Revolution (TMR), after having written about it just earlier this week. When last we visited this klatsch of smugly arrogant moms, one of them was […]

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

Acid flashbacks to antivaccine conspiracy theories from nine years ago

I’m home. Oh, wait. No. Well, I’m back. Yes, the grant has been submitted, and I’m ready to get back to my hobby of science, skepticism, and, when necessary, laying down some Insolence, both Respectful and not-so-Respectful. And, it figures, too. While I was distracted with meatspace concerns, such as trying to keep my lab […]