Paul Offit Takes On Robert Sears
Dr. Robert Sears, son of the perhaps more famous Dr. William Sears (both pediatricians), has continued his father’s work of publishing popular books for parents. He wrote The Vaccine Book: Making the right decision for your child, published in October 2007. In it he advocates his Dr. Bob’s Alternative Vaccine Schedule. Much of his claims made in the book are repeated on...
2008 Medical Weblog Awards
I am pleased to announce that Science-Based Medicine is a finalist for a 2008 Medical Weblog Award in the New Medical Blog category. You can see all the categories and finalists here: http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2009/01/the_2008_medical_weblog_awards_the_polls_are_open.html Of note, our blogging friend, Orac, is also a finalist for Respectful Insolence in the health policies/ethics category, along with our own Dr. Val Jones for her excellent blog,...
Reality is unfair
This space has often hosted musings on the nature of scientific knowledge, on how medical science is based in methodological naturalism (MN), rather than supernaturalism. MN requires that our acquisition of knowledge about the natural world be based on natural phenomena. The reason for this should be quite obvious: the natural world is the only one that exists, for all intents and...
Christine Maggiore and Eliza Jane Scovill: Living and dying with HIV/AIDS denialism
On Science-Based Medicine, we strive to apply the light of science and reason on all manner of unscientific belief systems about medicine. For the most part, but by no means exclusively, we have concentrated on so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) because there is an active movement to infiltrate faith-based, rather than science-based, modalities into “conventional” medicine. Indeed, such efforts are well-financed,...
AARP and Alternative Medicine
I know I said the next entry would be about the efficacy of the influenza vaccine. The road to blogging in paved with good intentions. I will eventually write that entry, but the ADD has kicked in and my attention has wandered elsewhere. I am 51 and one of the benefits of this advanced age is you get to join AARP, the...
A Year of Science-Based Medicine
On January 1, 2008 I wrote the first blog entry on Science-Based Medicine introducing the new blog. Now, by coincidence, I have the privilege of writing the last entry of 2008. It seems like a good time to look back over the last year and reflect on our little project. I am happy to write that by all measures SBM has been...
The $150,000 Vaccine Challenge
A man named Jock Doubleday has offered $150,000 to any physician who gives vaccines to drink the chemicals in a vaccine. It's a profoundly dishonest challenge, so full of conditions that it's clear it was meant never to be honored, much less paid.
The fallacy of “balance” and “fairness” about unscientific health claims in the media: A case study
For those of us who have dedicated ourselves to promoting science-based medicine, one of the most frustrating impediments to our message is the media. Time and time again, I’ve complained about how the media takes unscientific health claims, particularly when it comes to vaccines, and gives a credulous hearing to them. Sometimes, it’s a filmmaker with a distinct ideological axe to grind...
Egnorance is Bliss
A few years ago, at a skeptics conference in Los Angeles, Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch had just finished giving a talk and was fielding questions from the audience. Someone asked, “why don’t you ever talk about how dangerous regular medicine is?” Dr. Barrett, with a look of bewilderment in his face and a tone of exasperation in his voice, replied: “This is what I...