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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Pseudoscience

Denis Rancourt on COVID-19: No virus, just psychological stress

It’s hard to believe that in the 21st century there are still those who are “not convinced that viruses exist.” Virus denial and antivax go together and always have. Denis Rancourt, while far from the first or more vociferous virus denier, is an excellent example.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science History Holocaust Medicine Politics

Are public health responses to COVID-19 like the Cultural Revolution?

Over at the “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration,” an anonymous graduate student likens COVID-19 responses to the Cultural Revolution. Wait, I thought COVID mitigations were the Holocaust! I’m so confused!

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

The quack view of preventing cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie, part 3

I happen to be in Houston right now attending the Society of Surgical Oncology annual meeting. Sadly, I’m only about 12 miles away from the lair of everybody’s favorite faux clinical researcher and purveyor of a cancer cure that isn’t, Stanislaw Burzynski. Such is life. In any case, this conference is all about cancer and […]

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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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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

More hilariously off-base genetics denialism

Things have been a bit too serious around here lately. After all, yesterday I wrote about obesity and chemotherapy, while the day before that I did an even lengthier than usual deconstruction of some claims by anti-Obamacare activists, which seemed particularly appropriate to me given that a group of wingnuts has just succeeded in mostly […]