Popular culture
Respectful Insolence
Category archives for Popular culture
Why am I not surprised? It looks as though Andrew Wakefield probably falsified his data
Posted by Orac on February 8, 2009 Pity Andrew Wakefield. Actually, on second thought, Wakefield deserves no pity. After all, he is the man who almost single-handedly launched the scare over the MMR vaccine in Britain when he published his infamous Lancet paper in 1998 in which he claimed to have linked the MMR vaccine to regressive autism and inflammation of the…
Nazi zombies are preparing to invade the United States
Posted by Orac on January 25, 2009 Back in December, I pointed out a Norwegian movie that the Hitler Zombie definitely approves of: Dead Snow (or Død Snø in Norwegian). After all, how can you go wrong with Nazi zombies in a remote, snow bound area in Norway attacking the usual bunch of hapless but beautiful young people? I don’t know about…
Autism quackery invades my hometown
Posted by Orac on January 16, 2009 I hate to see this. I really do. I really hate it to see people who think they’re doing a good thing, who think they’re raising money for a worthy charity, totally clueless that what they are doing is supporting the rankest pseudoscience and quackery. Here’s an example from my hometown of Detroit. It’s a…
Bill Maher on Christine Maggiore’s book
Posted by Orac on January 14, 2009 Last week, I did multiple posts about the death of HIV/AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore of what for all the world looked like an HIV-related pneumonia, the excuses HIV/AIDS denialists made to try to persuade people that it wasn’t AIDS, and the attempted coverup of damning posts. In the past, I’ve also taken a certain comedian…
An actual pro-vaccine storyline? On ABC?
Posted by Orac on January 10, 2009 I don’t watch Private Practice. I didn’t like Grey’s Anatomy, which, every time I caught part of it, struck me as the cheesiest sort of medical soap opera, a General Hospital transplanted to prime time. Given that Private Practice is a spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy, I never saw any reason whatsoever to watch. However, on…
$50 million for antivaccine madness?
Posted by Orac on January 5, 2009 Over the last year and a half, Jenny McCarthy has been, unfortunately, a fairly frequent topic of this blog. There is, of course, a reason for this. Ever since she published her first book on autism back in the summer of 2007, she has become the public face of the antivaccine movement and autism quackery.…
Run, don’t walk, away from these Doctors
Posted by Orac on December 23, 2008 I’m happy to say, I’ve never watched an episode of The Doctors, at least if the episode segment I’ve just been sent is any indication of the quality of the science and medicine discussed on the TV show. The episode, which aired on December 11, featured a segment on autism featuring an old “friend” of…
Two actors and their woo
Posted by Orac on December 22, 2008 Why does anyone listen to actors when they pontificate about health and medical issues? Think about it. What is it that actors do? They read lines given to them. True, some have a talent that goes beyond that; they can actually write or direct. But few of them have any more abilities when it comes…
Did Larry King learn his lesson?
Posted by Orac on December 21, 2008 As much as I’d love to take credit, the postponement of the appearance of Jenny McCarthy and J.B. Handley on Larry King Live! originally scheduled for last night had nothing to do with me. Really. The cancellation was apparently announced shortly after my post appeared, leaving no time for it to have had an effect.…
Your Friday Dose of Woo: Another model goes woo
Posted by Orac on December 5, 2008 What is it about celebrity models and credulity towards woo? Very early in the history of this blog, we first encountered Suzanne Somers, someone who underwent lumpectomy and radiation therapy for breast cancer, as well as radiation, but eschewed chemotherapy for “alternative” medicine. Guess to what she attributed her survival? Then she got into bioidentical…
Et tu, Anthony Edwards and Dustin Hoffman?
Posted by Orac on November 19, 2008 It looks as though the Jenny McCarthy woo factor has claimed two more celebrity victims’ brains. If a recently viewed press release is any indication, it appears that Anthony Edwards and Dustin Hoffman are getting into the autism quackery business: Internet Marketing Company joins Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Edwards and others in…
The Age of Autism challenges the Pharynguloid hordes
Posted by Orac on October 1, 2008 Readers may be wondering why I haven’t written about Jenny McCarthy’s latest brain dead outburst against Amanda Peet. (Actually, brain dead is too kind a description of it, given that Jenny’s retort in essence boils down to her having an “angry mob” on her side making Amanda “completely wrong.”) It’s because I decided to try…
The Chicago Tribune’s cheerleader for woo is at it again
Posted by Orac on September 22, 2008 Oddly enough, I’m more tired this morning than I was on Friday. That’s the sort of thing that happens when I actually do as much work over the weekend as I often do on two typical weekdays. The reason is that I’ve suddenly found myself with an unexpected promotion, and–oh, by the way–there’s stuff that…
Suzanne Somers versus Christina Applegate in a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy fantasy cage match!
Posted by Orac on August 25, 2008 Earlier today, I did a rather extensive post about a particularly ghoulish attempt to exploit the story of a woman with cancer, in this case Christina Applegate. It turns out that Mike Adams isn’t the only woo-meister looking to capitalize on Ms. Applegate’s misfortune, You just knew it had to happen, but Thighmaster, Bioidentical Stem…
Jenny needs me again!
Posted by Orac on August 15, 2008 I was called upon once before, and now I’m called upon again. Jenny McCarthy needs me:
Vaccine fearmongers versus Steve Novella
Posted by Orac on July 23, 2008 I’m envious of Steve Novella. Well, just a little, anyway. The reason is that he’s somehow managed to annoy David Kirby and the anti-vaccine contingent enough to provoke what appears to be a coordinated response to his debunking of anti-vaccine propaganda. For that alone he deserves some serious props. You may have wondered why I…
Let’s see, Generation Rescue has Jenny McCarthy, Britney Spears, and now…
Posted by Orac on July 22, 2008 …professional wrestling! You know, it seems eerily appropriate. Generation Rescue always struck me as being akin to pro wrestling anyway, especially its founder J. B. Handley. His antics in the service of the scientifically discredited notion that mercury in vaccines cause autism (or, these days, that it’s vaccines that cause autism) always struck me as…
Britney Spears and Hugh Hefner join the anti-vaccine brigade
Posted by Orac on July 21, 2008 In the celebrity vaccine wars, as we all know, Jenny McCarthy has become the de facto leader of the “vaccines-cause-autism” lunatic fringe. However, apparently she has managed to recruit another celebrity to help her out. Her choice is amazingly appropriate: Britney Spears, who was seen at a fundraiser for “Jenny McCarthy’s autism charity Generation Rescue.”…
Management-speak: Or let’s incentivize our workers to get complete buy-in to become a product evangelist and platform atheist
Posted by Orac on June 17, 2008 I consider myself very fortunate that I don’t work in business. As a physician and a scientist, I just don’t think I would fit in the culture that well. Oh, I’m sure I’d adapt if ever the killer opportunity in big pharma or surgical device manufacturing ever came around to which I couldn’t say “no,”…
Beware and get ready, my U.K. readers, part 3: The credulous media coverage of David Kirby’s visit has begun
Posted by Orac on May 26, 2008 I figured it was coming, although I didn’t think it would come this far before David Kirby’s impending visit to the U.K., but I guess that’s the fruit of his being invited by a woo-loving Lord to give a briefing at Parliament. This time it comes in the form of an article in the Daily…
The Hannah Poling case: Autism rebranded again
Posted by Orac on March 10, 2008 Damn you, mercury militia. I had had another topic entirely in mind for this week’s post, but, as happens far too often, news events have overtaken me in the form of a story that was widely reported towards the end of last week. It was all over the media on Thursday evening and Friday, showing…
Antivaccination propaganda about the Poling case: A Saturday morning link roundup
Posted by Orac on March 8, 2008 Yesterday was annoying. It started out hearing about the vaccine injury case conceded by the government in a story on NPR on during my drive into work. As I walked through the clinic waiting area on the way to my lab, the TVs in the waiting rooms were all on CNN, where–you guessed it!–there was…
The American Academy of Pediatrics versus antivaccinationist hypocrisy
Posted by Orac on February 18, 2008 Three weeks ago, I wrote about some truly irresponsible antivaccination propaganda masquerading as entertainment that aired in the form of a television show called Eli Stone. This show, which portrayed its hero taking on the case of an autistic boy whose mother blamed his autism on thimerosal (going under the fictional name “mercuritol”) in vaccines…
More on the antivaccination propaganda in “Eli Stone”
Posted by Orac on January 29, 2008 Last week, I did one of my inimitable rants about an ABC television show set to air on Thursday called Eli Stone, in which a lawyer sues a pharmaceutical company for “mercuritol” (an obvious allusion to thimerosal) in vaccines and how it supposedly caused a child’s autism. Basically, I called it an irresponsible bit of…
Don Imus: He never fails to deliver the stupid when it comes to vaccines and autism
Posted by Orac on January 26, 2008 I’ll give Don Imus credit for one thing. He’s predictable and consistent. He never fails to deliver the stupid when it comes to vaccines and autism. True, his wife may take the stupid to hysterically malignant levels when she decides to rant about her belief in the undead myth that mercury in vaccines was a…