TagsTagsComing up tonight at 9pm ET on PBS Frontline: The vaccine war. (You can watch the full show over the web at this link.)
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, PBS, Frontline
This week, Jenny McCarthy and the anti-vaccination “movement” were definitively shut down by a special branch of the US Court of Federal claims: Court says thimerosal did not cause autism. WASHINGTON – The vaccine additive thimerosal is not to blame for autism, a special federal court ruled Friday in a ...
British medical journal The Lancet has officially retracted the study they published in 1998 that began the still-spreading anti-vaccination craziness. [Video] Britain’s General Medical Council has issued a ruling as well, calling the research done by Dr. Andrew Wakefield for his discredited study linking MMR vaccine to autism “callous, unethical, and dishonest.” ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, The Lancet
While I supported the Bush administration’s foreign policies for the most part, one of the biggest disagreements I had with them was their blatant bias against scientific research; and one of the best examples of that bias was their opposition to stem cell research, an opposition based entirely on irrational ...
Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Medicine, Health, Religious Right
At Huffington Post, TV talk show host Bill Maher has a very lengthy article trying to explain his anti-vaccination opinions, but it’s more obfuscation than explanation: Bill Maher: Vaccination: A Conversation Worth Having. It’s pretty long-winded and a bit whiny, and amounts to a restatement of Maher’s previous positions, which were ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Swine Flu, H1N1, Bill Maher, Orac
Wired’s Amy Wallace has an excellent piece on the rise of the idiotic and perilous anti-vaccine “movement:” An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All. Wired also identifies some of the most prominent idiots promoting this bad craziness (but somehow they missed Bill Maher): The Misinformants: Prominent ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Swine Flu, H1N1
Bill Maher utterly embarrasses himself in this clip from his “Real Time” show, with ignorant comments about vaccination (yes, Maher is an anti-vaxer) you have to hear to believe. According to Maher, vaccination is not proven to work scientifically. (Do I need to point out how completely false this is?) [Video] ScienceBlogger ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Swine Flu, H1N1, Bill Maher
Somebody pinch me. I must be having a bad dream. There can’t be this many ignorant anti-vaccination parents playing chicken with the lives of their children: AP Poll: Third of parents oppose swine flu vaccine. ATLANTA – As the first wave of swine flu vaccine crosses the country, more than ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Swine Flu, H1N1
At James Randi’s “Amazing Meeting,” Neurologist Steve Novella gave an interesting talk on the benefits of vaccination, and the growing danger of the anti-vaccination movement. (This is an introduction to a panel discussion that hasn’t been posted yet.) [Video]
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Jenny McCarthy, Steve Novella, James Randi
The 3 Monkeys Guide to Health blog has an excellent post about the enormous fines levied against the drug company Pfizer, and the distorted claims being made about the situation: Pfizer Pleads Guilty, Pays $2.3 Billion For Off-Label Use of Bextra, Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica. In this case it was ...
Anti-vaccination kook Jenny McCarthy has been signed up as a “health expert” for a personalized exercise game by Ubisoft: Tom (son of Jack?) Chick gives a heads up: Ubisoft is using anti-vaccine wingnut Jenny McCarthy in its new Wii game.
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Jenny McCarthy, Video Games
While we’re messing around with this silly Supreme Court nomination hearing in the US, over in Saudi Arabia they’re curing cancer with camel urine. Dr. Faten Abdel-Rahman Khorshid is responsible for one of the Kingdom’s greatest national achievements in the field of science for her work which began with the ...
Here’s a very cool video promo for a cause you may not expect: [Video] The link comes from a friend of Bill Whittle’s, Dana Commandatore, with a note about the motivation of the clip: I’m the mother of a 6 year old autistic boy who has had enough of the pseudo-science quackery ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Jenny McCarthy, Autism, babes
Here’s an excellent article exploring the disturbing rise of irrational anti-vaccination theories, now threatening public health as diseases long thought eradicated in modern societies are returning with a vengeance: A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine–Autism Wars. Until the summer of 2005, Sharon Kaufman had never paid much attention to ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Jenny McCarthy, Autism
Another disease making a big comeback, because of the anti-vaccination craziness spread by irresponsible people like Jenny McCarthy: whooping cough. Children who aren’t vaccinated against whooping cough are 23 times more likely to develop the disease than children who get all of their shots on time, a new study shows. Whooping ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Whooping Cough
In today’s Chicago Tribune, an exposé of a Chicago doctor who peddles anti-vaccination insanity to patients—along with quack remedies, including a claim that Vitamin D cures autism: Autism doctor: Troubling record trails doctor treating autism. Dr. Mayer Eisenstein comes across as a grandfatherly physician, a pat-on-the-knee practitioner who delivers babies ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Chicago, Autism
The anti-vaccination insanity is starting to take a fatal toll across the pond as well: Measles outbreak ‘worst in years’. Health chiefs in Wales are dealing with a “massive” measles outbreak, with numbers already four times the highest figure recorded over the past 13 years. Four nursery school children were treated ...
Shirley Wu says it all in this open letter to Oprah, about her disastrous decision to give a talk show to anti-vaccination kook Jenny McCarthy: Dear Oprah, I have to confess, I have never watched more than a few minutes of your show. Probably not the best way to start a ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Jenny McCarthy, Oprah Winfrey
Discover Magazine has an excellent article by Chris Mooney on the anti-vaccination insanity that crosses political boundaries, and is now becoming a major risk to public health: Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On? Vaccines do not cause autism. That was the ruling in each of three critical test cases ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Science, Anti-Science
The Wall Street Journal has an article about a report from the Centers for Disease Control warning about new outbreaks of diseases thought to be eradicated—due to parents who are buying into the anti-vaccination craziness promoted by people like Jenny McCarthy: Fear of Vaccines Spurs Outbreaks, Study Says. Parental doubts ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Science, Anti-Science
Here’s an excellent post by David Gorski at Science-Based Medicine, taking an in-depth look at The Huffington Post’s War on Medical Science. And the picture is not pretty. But I’d also point out that in addition to the anti-science quackery that runs rampant at HuffPo, there’s been a long-running strain of extreme ...
Huffington Post, Anti-Vaccine, quackery, kooks, Science, Medicine
Writing about the latest anti-vaccination insanity published at Huffington Post, Phil Plait says: I am embarrassed I ever wrote anything for HuffPo, which is now a cesspool of misleading misinformation. I could have told you that long ago, Phil. But we all have our blind spots, I guess.
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Huffington Post, Science
Apparently, physicians and medical scientists are just as disgusted with the Huffington Post as your average “right wing” blogger. Who knew? Jim Carrey, husband of anti-vaccination kook Jenny McCarthy, has written a screed for Arianna advocating the latest Dark Ages fantasy of the left and the right: that vaccinations cause autism. This ...
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, Jim Carrey, Huffington Post, Science
Neocons are more intelligent than most conservatives but much more evil.
Vaccines, Medicine, Health, kooks, Pseudo-Science, London, Reddit
Thanks in part to the kooks on both the right and the left who are promoting anti-vaccination insanity (people like Jenny McCarthy and publications like World Net Daily), diseases long thought eradicated are making a big comeback in London. London is suffering a startling rise in diseases associated with Victorian ...