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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Andrew Wakefield appeals?

On the antivaccine front, this year began with antivaccine hero Andrew Wakefield filing suit against investigative reporter Brian Deer, the BMJ, and Fiona Godlee (the editor of BMJ) for libel based on a series that Deer published in the BMJ outlining the evidence for Wakefield’s scientific fraud in his (in)famous 1998 Lancet case series. This […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Andrew Wakefield's libel suit against Brian Deer: Dismissed!

I tell ya, sometimes I think you guys think I’m a journalist or a 24 hour news source. I’m not, of course. I’m just a humble blogger, and I do what I can within the constraints of my every day “real life.” What? I have a real life? You mean I’m not really a supercomputer […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The British Chiropractic Association throws in the towel in the Simon Singh case

Today is a great day. Today, British science writer Simon Singh accomplished something I would never have believed possible, given British libel laws and a very bad ruling by Sir David Eady, the presiding judge, a ruling characterized as astonishingly illiberal. Despite the long odds, Singh appealed the ruling and actually won. As a result, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Science

A battle won for free speech and science, but the war remains

I was wrong. I know it doesn’t happen that often, but I’m forced to admit it. I was wrong. I predicted that Simon Singh would likely lose his appeal against an astonishing illiberal ruling on his libel case by Sir David Eady. Singh, as you may recall, is the British science writer who wrote a […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Dismissed!

Well, that didn’t take long. Remember when the grande dame of the anti-vaccine movement, Barbara Loe Fisher, decided that she would try to harass, intimidate, and silence Paul Offit through the filing of a frivolous libel suit against Dr. Offit, Amy Wallace (the journalist who interviewed Offit for an excellent article last year), and Condé […]