Alex Spourdalakis
oracknows | July 13, 2016One of the most insidious and oft-repeated myths of the antivaccine movement is that vaccines cause autism. Certainly, it is true that there was an antivaccine movement long before anyone thought of linking vaccines to autism. For example, in the the 1980s the DPT (diptheria-whole cell pertussis-tetanus) vaccine was linked to encephalitis and neurological damage, a scare that lead to a wave of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers that threatened the US vaccine program. Congress replied by passing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, a “no-fault” act in which vaccine…
oracknows | May 29, 2015I've frequently written about the "arrogance of ignorance," a phenomenon that anyone who's paid attention to what quacks, cranks, or antivaccine activists (but I repeat myself) write and say beyond a certain period of time will have encountered. Basically, it's the belief found in such people—and amplified in groups—that somehow they can master a subject as well or better than experts who have spent their entire professional lives studying the subject on their own, often just through the use of Google University and the echo chamber discussion forums that they frequent with their fellow…
Is Sharyl Attkisson feeling the heat over her irresponsible reporting of the Alex Spourdalakis case?
oracknows | September 6, 2013Yesterday, I did a bit of navel gazing about how cranks, quacks, and antivaccinationists have a penchant for attacking skeptics at work in order to try to intimidate them into silence. Reading the post over again, I realize that it came across perhaps more whiny than it should have, but I guess I was just in that sort of mood when I wrote it. One thing that I didn't discuss, though, is how attacks like this have traditionally been a very reliable indication that that I'm on the right track with respect to the quackery being called out. When I write my usual, run-of-the-mill posts about…
oracknows | September 4, 2013Antivaccinationists, quacks, and apologists for antivaccinationists and quacks (but I repeat myself) seem to have an illusion that I'm just swimming in pharma lucre, that I sit in my underwear grinding out magnum opus-worthy after magnum opus-worthy blog posts, all so that I can rake in the cash hand over fist, lead a life of pure luxury, and enjoy ruthlessly crushing any hint of dissent regarding science-based medicine. Even if that assessment were completely true, as Lord Draconis Zeneca tells us that it is, it's not all easy being a prolific, logorrheic pharma shill servilely doing the…
Sharyl Attkisson and CBS News: Lying by omission about the murder of autistic teen Alex Spourdalakis
oracknows | September 1, 2013The damaged done by the antivaccine movement is primarily in how it frightens parents out of vaccinating using classic denialist tactics of spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). Indeed, as has been pointed out many times before, antivaccinationists are often proud of their success in discouraging parents from vaccinating, with one leader of the antivaccine movement even going to far as to characterize his antivaccine "community, held together with duct tape and bailing wire," as being in the "early to middle stages of bringing the U.S. vaccine program to its knees." Meanwhile, just…