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

How "they" view "us," Ebola edition

I realize that yesterday’s post was even longer than my usual post (and, given who I am, that’s saying something), but there was a thought that popped up last night about the Ebola conspiracy theories that I discussed that I can’t resist finishing the week on with a (hopefully) much more concise post. (I know, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Just as the H1N1 conspiracy theory machine did in 2009, the Ebola conspiracy theory machine goes into overdrive

Does anyone remember the H1N1 influenza pandemic? As hard as it is to believe, that was five years ago. One thing I remember about the whole thing is just how crazy both the antivaccine movement and conspiracy theorists (but I repeat myself) went over the public health campaigns to vaccinate people against H1N1. It was […]

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

Nuance versus certainty: The disadvantage scientists and physicians have in communicating risk

This post, although it is about an interview with a CDC scientist named William W. Thompson that resulted from the whole “CDC whistleblower” manufactroversy that’s been flogged relentlessly for the last two weeks, since antivaccine “heros” Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker released a despicable race-bating video flogging Hooker’s utterly incompetent reanalysis of a ten year […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The CDC whistleblower William W. Thompson: One last word

I know that when last I commented, I expressed the desire to move on from the topic of the CDC whistleblower case after having covered it for a week. And so was my intent. However, this being a holiday in the US and my having had an odd experience on Friday led me to think […]

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

The CDC whistleblower William W. Thompson: Final (for now) roundup and epilogue

It is as I had feared. I must do one more post on a story that I’ve been blogging about for one solid week now. Hopefully after this, I will be able to move on to other topics last week, but after spending this whole week writing just about this, I figured, “What the heck? […]