Tag: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Vaccines Still Don’t Cause Autism
Update: The evidence continues to show no link between vaccines and autism.

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.

In 2017, are antivaxers winning?
The election of Donald Trump as President has emboldened antivaxers, because they quite rightly sense that he is one of them. His inauguration as President, combined with other trends, have led observers to ask the question: Are antivaxers winning, or will 2017 be the year of the antivaxer?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. promotes an awful epidemiology study linking vaccines and neurological conditions from…Yale?
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has never seen a lousy study linking vaccines to bad things that he didn't like. This is no exception. Oddly enough, this study was funded and carried out by a lawyer and an investment banker, with the help of an eminent Yale pediatrician. Of course, the study doesn't show what RFK Jr. thinks it shows.

Trump Meets with RFK Jr. To Discuss “Vaccine Safety”
Trump and RFK Jr., both with anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs, met to discuss forming a presidential panel on vaccines and autism. The exact outcome is uncertain, but the possibilities are frightening.

The Medical Director of The Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute spewed antivaccine misinformation last week. Why is anyone surprised?
A social media firestorm erupted over the weekend after Dr. Daniel Neides, Director of The Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, posted an article full of antivaccine misinformation. The Cleveland Clinic promptly disavowed it, but shouldn't have been surprised that one of its "integrative medicine" leaders is antivaccine. If you "integrate" medicine that teaches that "toxins" cause disease and "detoxification" is the cure, antivaccine...

Bill Maher: Still an antivaccine crank after all these years
Bill Maher likes to represent himself as the epitome of rationality, primarily on the basis of his rejection of religion. However, rejection of religion does not necessarily make one a skeptic. Maher has demonstrated this over the last decade based on his embrace of antivaccine pseudoscience and other unscientific views. This time around, he fawned over antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.