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

CNBC publishes an antivaccine press release from the Weston A. Price Foundation and Leslie Manookian

One of the things I’ve noticed over the last decade of covering pseudoscience and quackery from a skeptical point of view is that no pseudoscientific trope ever really dies. This is particularly true of antivaccine tropes. No matter how many times this piece or that of antivaccine misinformation is slapped down, sooner or later it […]

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

In which I am called an astroturfer and generously offered a chance at unconditional surrender by antivaccine cranks

Ever since the Disneyland measles outbreak hit high gear last month and permeated the national consciousness, the antivaccine movement has, justifiably, been on the defensive. We’ve been treated to the spectacle of a truly despicable cardiologist spewing antivaccine nonsense with an added dollop of contempt for parents of children with cancer who are worried about […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Antivaccine cardiologist Jack Wolfson and the resurrection of false balance about vaccines…again!

I swear, I had wanted to write about something else today. I really had. The reason is that we’re in one of those stretches of time where things seem to be happening fast and furious that have led most of my posts over the last couple of weeks to be about the Disneyland measles outbreak, […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Quackery Television

Antivaccine cardiologist Jack Wolfson and the resurrection of false balance about vaccines

Yesterday, I wrote about false balance in reporting on vaccines in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak. For those who’ve never encountered this blog, what I mean by false balance is when journalists, in a misguided belief that there are “two sides” (i.e., an actual scientific controversy) about the safety of childhood vaccines and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The past and present rebuke antivaccinationists who claim measles is “benign”

In the wake of antivaccine-pandering pediatrician “Dr. Bob” Sears’ attempt to paint the measles as no big deal, so much so that it totally escaped his notice that it might not be a bad idea to recommend that the unvaccinated get the MMR vaccine in the midst of an outbreak, the bad news about the […]