Tag: pseudoscience
Acupuncture for Heart Attacks and more State-Sanctioned Pseudoscience
States default to a private organization run by acupuncturists and TCM practitioners to vet continuing education courses, with predictable results.
A blast from the past: The “interstitium,” the inspiration for that recent awful NYT acupuncture article
I'm on vacation this week and decided to repost a 2018 article that I had written for my other blog (but never published on SBM) that's oddly relevant to the SBM post last week about that awful NYT acupuncture article. Meet the introduction of the "interstitium" in acupuncture, complete with a major Deepak Chopra connection!
More credulous nonsense about acupuncture, this time from National Geographic
PNAS recently published credulous nonsense about acupuncture so bad that I thought it couldn't be topped. "Hold my beer!" cried National Geographic, as it proceeded to top PNAS.
Legislative Alchemy: Licensing reflexologists and other practitioners of pseudoscience
State legislatures are considering bills that would legitimize pseudoscience like reflexology and reiki by recognizing their practitioners as health care professionals.
The CDC is lying to you about vaccines and autism
The CDC webpage about vaccines and autism now misrepresents the science and lies to the public about vaccines and autism. It's just part of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s continuing war on vaccines.
The Biopolitics of Quackademic Medicine in Iran
The problem of quackademic medicine in a place we in the US don't often consider.
Quack Quack
Joe Schwarcz's new book Quack Quack is an informative and entertaining look at quackery and pseudoscience past and present. A delightful read.
What does “antivaccine” really mean since the pandemic hit?
We frequently use terms like “antivaccine,” “antivax,” and “antivaxxers.” Critics think it’s a “gotcha” to ask how we define “antivax” or to accuse us of reflexively label "questioning" of vaccines as "antivax." It's not. There are gray areas, but not so gray that the word is never appropriate. Has anything changed since I first tried to define "antivaccine" in 2010? The answer:...
The State of Florida spreads antivaccine disinformation disguised as an epidemiological “study”
On Friday, Florida State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo released a non-peer-reviewed "study" that recommends against males aged 18 to 39 receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines based on bad epidemiology and science. This is the first time that we've seen a state government weaponize bad science to spread antivaccine disinformation as official policy, a dangerous new escalation in antivaccine propaganda.
Legislative Alchemy: “Naturopathic Doctor” licensing is bad medicine for Florida
Bad medicine, bad laws, bad choice