Antivaccine nonsense
Respectful Insolence
Category archives for Antivaccine nonsense
An antivaccine Frankenstein strikes back against the monster he created
Posted by Orac on February 7, 2013 On the one hand, I’m seriously tempted to get out the popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show that is the internecine conflict going on in the antivaccine movement right now. On the other hand, as bizarre as it sounds, I actually do feel a bit sorry for the main combatant, Jake Crosby. He’s the…
Gary Null and Sayer Ji love me! They really love me!
Posted by Orac on February 5, 2013 Gary Null loves me! He really loves me! Well, maybe not Gary Null, but Sayer Ji. You remember Sayer Ji, don’t you? He’s the guy who runs GreenMedInfo.com who showed up on my skeptical radar when he claimed that vaccines are “transhumanism” that subverts evolution. (Seriously, you can’t make stuff like this up.) On another…
The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation finally does the right thing and dumps Jenny McCarthy
Posted by Orac on February 2, 2013 It’s good to see that the organizers of the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation finally realized its mistake: Actress Jenny McCarthy has been dumped again. McCarthy won’t be in Ottawa for Bust A Move. The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation reacted today to a public backlash in signing the anti-vaccine campaigner to the Ottawa breast health fundraiser.…
An antivaccine Frankenstein’s monster turns on his creator
Posted by Orac on February 1, 2013 Almost everyone knows the story of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. It’s such a classic tale that has been around so long and told so many times in so many ways that it’s almost impossible for someone living in this country not to have encountered it growing up. Frankenstein’s monster is also a tale that…
We’ll take the money you can bring us, even if you’re antivaccine
Posted by Orac on January 31, 2013 I’m sure this is a case where someone thought it was a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s an astoundingly bad idea: The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation is bringing McCarthy to town March 2 to headline its annual Bust a Move fundraiser as a guest fitness instructor. But the actress, author and…
The Cochrane Collaborative’s Tom Jefferson makes the huge mistake of appearing on Gary Null’s show
Posted by Orac on January 25, 2013 Three years ago, the influenza season was a really big deal. The reason, of course, is that the 2009-2010 flu season was dominated by fears of the H1N1 strain, so much so that it was a rare flu season that there were two recommended vaccines, one for the originally expected strains of flu and one…
Beauty and the antivaccine beast
Posted by Orac on January 24, 2013 The last couple of days have been very busy, as you might have guessed from my brief (for me) post on Tuesday and my—shall we say?—appropriation of a post to use for yesterday. Today’s going to be the same, but for more pleasant reasons than having had to go out to dinner with a visiting…
Does anyone “recover” from autism?
Posted by Orac on January 23, 2013 Way back in the day, when I was a newbie at countering the mass of hysterical pseudoscience that is the antivaccine movement, particularly the myth that vaccines cause autism, a blogger by the ‘nym of Prometheus taught me that autism and autism spectrum disorders (particularly by antivaccinationists and believers in the quackery known as “autism…
Quoth the Institute of Medicine: The current vaccine schedule is safe and effective. Quoth antivaccinationists: Gahhhh!
Posted by Orac on January 17, 2013 I sense another disturbance in the antivaccine Force. Yes, I realize that it was just a couple of days ago that I sensed a previous disturbance rippling through the antivaccine Force. That’s when antivaccinationists brought David Kirby out of mothballs from whatever journalistic slime pit he’s currently residing in to use every trick at his…
For shame, NPR, for falling for false “balance” about vaccines!
Posted by Orac on January 17, 2013 This is going to be uncharacteristically short, for me that is. I sometimes listen to NPR as I drive home from work, and I happened to be doing just that yesterday evening when I heard a story about the new Institute of Medicine report on vaccines and the vaccine schedule. (Stay tuned for my post…
David Kirby’s back, and this time his anti-vaccine fear mongering induces…ennui
Posted by Orac on January 15, 2013 I sense a disturbance in the antivaccine Force, which is, of course, by definition the Dark Side. Whenever I sense such a disturbance, there are a number of possible reactions that it provokes in me. One such reaction is alarm, as when antivaccine activists say something that is just clever enough to sound plausible enough…
Congratulations to Kim Stagliano of Age of Autism…
Posted by Orac on January 13, 2013 …you’ve received some well-deserved recognition! I can’t think of a more deserving up-and-coming antivaccine activist to be inducted into this most “prestigious” of groups of American Loons! I’ve written about Stagliano’s science- and logic-challenged posts many times over the last few years, but it’s good to see that others have noticed as well. From the…
Some post-holiday antivaccine “science”
Posted by Orac on December 26, 2012 I hope that you and yours are having a fantastic holiday season thus far. Yesterday, we had a great family gathering, after which I settled down to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special; all in all, a most excellent Christmas Day. Unfortunately, towards the later part of the day, someone out there sent me an…
Andrew Wakefield wins an award just as he jumps on the anti-psychiatry bandwagon
Posted by Orac on December 24, 2012 I certainly don’t even try to keep secret my opinion of Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who is almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the measles back to the UK, thanks to his bad science, for which he was well-paid by trial lawyers and his falsification of data and scientific fraud. Since 1998, when Wakefield first…
Cry the antivaxers and quacks: ‘Twas big pharma that led Adam Lanza to kill
Posted by Orac on December 21, 2012 Quacks despise science-based medicine in general, but there are certain specialties that they detest more than others. Arguably, the specialty most attacked by quacks is psychiatry. Many are the reasons, some legitimate, many not. In particular, Scientologists despise psychiatry, even going so far as to maintain a “museum” dedicated to psychiatry that they charmingly call…
Antivaccine quackery: You be Orac today!
Posted by Orac on December 20, 2012 Some antivaccine (and quack, but I repeat myself) tropes come up time and time again, and I’ve blogged about them time and time again. Obviously, at times this can get a bit repetitive, particularly when I’ve been blogging nearly every day for eight years. On the other hand, even after eight years, I still regularly…
Should thimerosal-containing vaccines be banned worldwide?
Posted by Orac on December 19, 2012 One of the oldest topics I’ve dealt with on this blog, a topic that I’ve been writing about on and off (unfortunately, mostly on) about the antivaccine movement. Ever since I first discovered about a decade ago that, yes, there are people ignorant enough about science and medicine that they actually think that vaccines are…
A simultaneously sympathetic and unsympathetic commentary on an antivaccine screed
Posted by Orac on December 7, 2012 The false idea that vaccines somehow cause or contribute to autism has been a common theme on this blog, and I’ve spent considerable verbiage discussing why anyone would think that vaccines are in any way associated with autism when the science is quite clear that they are not. If there’s one thing I’ve been consistent…
The mummer’s farce that was the Congressional autism hearing last week
Posted by Orac on December 4, 2012 Last Wednesday, I took note of an “old friend” and (thankfully) soon-to-be ex-Representative from Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, organized quackery’s best friend in the U.S. House of Representatives, Dan Burton. Specifically, I noted that Rep. Burton appeared to be having his one last antivaccine hurrah in the form of a hearing about the “autism epidemic”…
Fundraising for antivaccine research
Posted by Orac on November 29, 2012 If there’s one thing that antivaccine cranks tell us that has a grain of truth in it, it’s to be wary of pharmaceutical companies and their influence. Their mission is, of course, to make profits, and sometimes the search for profits can lead them to do things that are less than savory. Of course, antivaccine…
H1N1 vaccine and miscarriages: More dumpster diving in the VAERS database
Posted by Orac on November 28, 2012 Antivaccinationists just love the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting (VAERS) database. As in love it to death. As in “can’t get enough of it.” The reason, of course, is that VAERS is a lot like an unmoderated discussion forum or, at best, a minimally moderated forum. Anyone can say anything they like. The reason is that…
Representative Dan Burton’s last antivaccine hurrah is scheduled for November 29
Posted by Orac on November 23, 2012 Whenever I blog about atrocities against science like the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), I’m frequently asked how just such an edifice designed to promote pseudoscience could have come to be as a full-fledged center in the National Institutes of Health. The answer is simple and boils down to woo-loving legislators. In…
Stephanie Seneff: Following the Geiers dumpster-diving in the VAERS database
Posted by Orac on November 20, 2012 As I looked over the ol’ blog last night, I was shocked to realize that I haven’t blogged about the antivaccine movement and its offenses against science in nearly three weeks. That’s right! The last time I did a vaccine post was when I examined a particularly egregiously bad paper from a couple of scientists…
Evidence-based medicine: More than a “coin flip”
Posted by Orac on November 16, 2012 One characteristic of cranks, quacks, and pseudoscience boosters is a love-hate relationship with science. They desperately crave the respectability and validation that science confers. In the case of medicine, they want to be seen as evidence- and science-based. On the other hand, they hate science because it just won’t given them what they want: Confirmation…
And now death by Gardasil? Again, not so fast…
Posted by Orac on October 31, 2012 I guess this is in effect part two of yesterday’s post. Regular daily readers (and you are a regular daily reader, aren’t you?) will remember that yesterday I commented on the recent uptick in anti-Gardasil vaccine rhetoric coming from the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism and other sources, in the process deconstructing speculation masquerading…