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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine

The “I told you so” fantasy, or: The fallacy of future vindication

Cranks love to fantasize that their ideas will be vindicated in the future. The fantasy almost never becomes reality.

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Anti-Semitism Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine History Hitler Zombie Holocaust Holocaust denial Medicine Quackery World War II

Can antivaccinationists knock it off with the autism Holocaust analogies already?

It’s very clear that many antivaccinationists hate autistic children. The language they use to describe them makes that very clear. Such children are “damaged” (by vaccines, of course); the parents’ real children were “stolen” from them (by vaccines); they are “toxic” (from vaccines); the “light left their eyes” (due to vaccines). Autism is an “epidemic,” […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine

Brian Hooker criticizes a vaccine safety study; hilarity ensues

Last week, the Journal of Pediatrics published a study that did a pretty good job of demolishing a favorite antivaccine trope used to frighten parents. In fact, it’s one of the most effective of antivaccine tropes, as evidenced by a large number of parents who are generally pro-vaccine expressing doubts when asked about this particular […]

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

“Common sense” that isn’t

“Common sense” is not so common. Actually, that’s not exactly right. What I meant was that what most people think of as “common sense” has little or nothing to do with what science concludes. Evidence talks, “common sense” walks. I saw a fantastic example to illustrate this point on a certain blog that I’ve found […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Autism prevalence is reported to be 1 in 50, and the antivaccine movement goes wild…again

I don’t always blog about stories or studies that interest me right away. Part of the reason is something I’ve learned over the last eight years of blogging, namely that, while it’s great to be the firstest with the mostest, I’d rather be the blogger with the mostest than the firstest. I’ve learned this from […]