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Antivaccine nonsense Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

When right wing loons try to “do” science involving vaccines or HIV/AIDS…

If there’s one thing that has irritated me (one might even say, irritated me enough to start this blog), it’s ideology or religion trumping science. Perhaps the most annoying form of this disease is the tendency of the right wing whackosphere to do everything and anything it can to distort and twist science to agree […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

How Andrew Wakefield invented “autistic enterocolitis”

I’m almost beginning to feel sorry for Andrew Wakefield. Well, not really. He did bring all the misery that’s poured down upon him like an unending waterfall of woe, such as the British General Medical Council (GMC) finding him guilty of research misconduct and soon very likely to recommend that he be “struck off,” a […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The danger of science denialism

Although this blog is not the Denialism Blog, there is no doubt that one of the overarching themes of Respectful Insolence has been, since its very beginning, combatting science denial. Go back to the very beginning and read a couple of my earliest posts, dating way back to 2004. In one of them I discussed […]

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

Dr. Oz: America’s doctor and the abdication of professional responsibility

Believe it or not, there was once a time when Dr. Mehmet Oz didn’t bother me that much. At least, for all his flirting with woo, I never quite thought that he had completely gone over to the Dark Side. Although I probably knew deep down that I was fooling myself. Maybe it was because […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Movies Popular culture Quackery Television

Generation Rescue in transition?

Six days ago, celebrity spokescouple for the anti-vaccine movement, Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, announced their breakup over Twitter. Some of us who have been following the antics of “Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey’s Autism Organization – Generation Rescue” have wondered what this would mean for the pro-disease movement pushing the idea that vaccines cause […]