Tag: quackery

Extinction-level event. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

RFK Jr.’s vaccine committee bloodbath: I hope you’re all up-to-date on your vaccines…

...because the CDC schedule is about to start shedding vaccines the way antivax newly appointed ACIP members think people vaccinated against COVID-19 shed spike protein. Ground zero for RFK Jr.'s extinction-level event with respect to public health is vaccines and the committee that recommends them for the CDC schedule.

/ June 16, 2025
Cartoon character Kirby holding a red sign with large yellow letters that read "STFU." Kirby has a cheerful expression and is set against a blue background.

Dr. Vinay Prasad is Repeatedly Undermining RCTs. Why?

It's quite the journey from "RCT or STFU" to "we will always have a place for controlled clinical studies."

/ June 10, 2025
Mehmet Oz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Marty Makary, Jay Bhattacharya, Vinay Prasad

Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad embrace a “more fluid concept of evidence” at the FDA

Last Thursday during a roundtable on stem cell therapies, new FDA Commissioner Marty Makary referred to EBM levels of evidence as an artificial and dogmatic construct. Apparently Dr. David Katz's "more fluid concept of evidence" now reigns at the FDA—selectively.

/ June 9, 2025
No turbo cancer at ASCO

No turbo cancer at ASCO: William Makis vs. Scott Adams and A Midwestern Doctor instead?

I was in Chicago this weekend attending the ASCO meeting, the largest oncology meeting in the world. Nary a talk or poster about "turbo cancer" was seen, but that doesn't mean there wasn't cancer quack fight online to distract me from the meeting.

/ June 2, 2025
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The MAHA Report: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (mostly the bad and ugly)

President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary's MAHA report has landed. It's a mix of the good (a little), but mostly the bad and the ugly (a lot).

/ May 26, 2025
A man wearing a green cap with the words “MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN” adjusts the brim while standing outdoors, with blurred trees and grass in the background.

Measles, MAHA, and “soft eugenics”

I've long said that the antivax movement is borderline eugenicist (or at least social Darwinist) in nature. Now that a second child has died of measles, it's time for me to take a look at the "soft eugenics" of the antivax movement and, more generally, the MAHA movement.

/ April 7, 2025
Trofim Lysenko

“Make America Healthy Again”: The new Lysenkoism

Trofim Lysenko was a Soviet scientist whose dogmatic science denialism led to mass famine when his ideas were applied to agriculture. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lot like Lysenko in his science denial. Will his results be as disastrous?

/ March 31, 2025
Hyperbaric oxygen chamber

Quackery (still) kills: A five-year-old boy dies in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber

Even as quacks and antivaxxers take over our federal government's health apparatus, let's not forget why we need stronger, not laxer, regulation of "unconventional" medical practices.

/ March 17, 2025
Measles rash

Measles is back, and so are all the old antivax tropes about it

Measles is back, and so are all the old antivax tropes about the disease and the vaccine. Unfortunately, there's an antivaxxer in charge.

/ March 3, 2025
Trouble in Paradise

Trouble in (MAHA) paradise?

Even as President Donald Trump is inaugurated today and his pick for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. prepares to face confirmation hearings, there is trouble in "make America healthy" paradise.

/ January 20, 2025