Results for: Andrew Wakefield
Shame on HBO! Bill Maher interviews Dr. Jay Gordon and the antivaccine misinformation flows.
Friday night, an old "friend" of the blog, pediatrician and antivaccine apologist Dr. Jay Gordon, made an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher. In a long segment, the antivaccine misinformation flowed fast and furious in a Gish gallop of pseudoscience. WTF, HBO?
Science-Based Satire: Integrative Baby Monitor Combines the Best of Conventional and Alternative Features
Are there really baby monitors on the market that can alert a parent to stagnant chi as well as dangerously low oxygen levels? No, that's ridiculous! Will a company sell one at some point in the future? Probably. But for now, it's satire.
FDA blacklists cesium chloride, ineffective and dangerous naturopathic cancer treatment
The FDA recently issued an alert warning of significant safety risks associated with cesium chloride. It is a mineral salt promoted by naturopathic “doctors” and “integrative” medicine practitioners as an alternative treatment for cancer, despite the lack of evidence of safety and efficacy in treating cancer or any other disease.
The influenza vaccine and miscarriages: Much ado about nothing
A study published on Wednesday claims to have found a link between influenza vaccination and miscarriage, and antivaxers are gloating. The study itself suffers mightily from post hoc subgroup analyses on small numbers, so much so that even its authors don’t really believe its results. None of that stopped them from publishing the study, thus justifying "more research" that will almost certainly...
Corrigendum. The Week in Review for 03/19/2017
What happened this week? Measles returns to kill. Stem cell injections blind. Lousy acupuncture studies. Fire hot. Skinny jeans are not a reason to see a chiropractor. Lesbian tendencies do not respond to homeopathy. And more.
Prove the scientific consensus and win a prize: A time-dishonored PR ploy used by cranks, quacks, and pseudoscientists (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. edition)
Last week, antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. teamed up with Robert De Niro to issue a challenge to provide one scientific study that proves thimerosal in vaccines is safe, with a cash prize of $100,000. They thus joined a long line of antivaxers, creationists, and climate science denialists offering money to "prove" the scientific consensus. Science doesn't work that way.
Corrigendum. The Week in Review for 02/19/2017
More poorly done acupuncture studies. Burzynski eats just desserts. Italians like homeopathy. New Jersey is going after Oregon. And more
“Donald Trump’s presidential election win stuns scientists”
Scientists in the U.S. and from around the world are weighing in on Donald Trump’s election as the next president of the most powerful country on earth: Trump will be the first anti-science president we have ever had . . . The consequences are going to be very, very severe. Michael Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society in...
“Complementary and Integrative Health” at the VA: Integrating pseudoscience into the care of veterans
In return for their service to our country, veterans deserve the best science-based medical care that we as a nation can provide. Unfortunately, the VA is integrating quackery into its medical care even more enthusiastically than medical academia.
Stanislaw Burzynski and Robert O. Young: How two quacks of a feather illustrate how poorly states regulate medical practice
One of the weaknesses in our system of regulating the practice of medicine in the United States is that, unlike most countries, we don’t have one system. We have 50 systems. That’s because the functions of licensing physicians and regulating the practice of medicine are not federal functions, but state functions. Each state sets its own laws and regulations governing the practice...