Antivaccine nonsense
oracknows | January 24, 2010Mike Adams is confused.
I know, I know. Such a statement is akin to saying that water is wet (and that it doesn't have memory, at least not the mystical magical memories ascribed to it by homeopaths), that the sun rises in the East, or that writing an NIH R01 grant is hard, but there you go. Speaking of writing an NIH R01, that's exactly what I'm doing now, hence the decreased blogorrhea over the last few days, but sometimes trying to cram a five year project into the 13 pages (one page for specific aims and twelve to describe the project) makes my head hurt so much that reading and…
oracknows | January 23, 2010Oh, yes, my brothers and sisters, we have done it!
My pharma paymasters are very, very pleased indeed with me and all of their other blogging and Twittering minions. Very, very pleased indeed. In fact, they are cackling with glee over the discomfiture of one of their greatest enemies, Mike Adams, a.k.a. The Health Ranger! This brave rebel's plan to attack the conspiracy by winning a Shorty Award in Health has been thwarted, thanks to the efforts of you and me, oh my brothers and sisters, and The Health Ranger has gone completely mental about it:
I was set to take the top prize, and Dr.…
oracknows | January 22, 2010One week ago, The Chicago Tribune added yet another excellent addition to its recent series of articles exposing the dark underbelly of the anti-vaccine movement and, more importantly, the quackery that permeates the "autism biomedical" movement promoted by anti-vaccine groups such as Age of Autism. The first installment in the series, written by Tribune reporters Trine Tsouderos and Pat Callahan, examined Mark and David Geier's Lupron protocol for autism (which I had written about three years ago under the title Why not just castrate them?), and the second shone a light under the rock…
oracknows | January 20, 2010Although I have a Twitter account, I really don't use it all that often, other than having set up an automatic feed to Tweet all my new posts for the blog. True, I do from time to time have flurries of activity (usually when I'm trapped in a particularly boring conference) or am inspired to tweak J.B. Handley or other anti-vaccine kooks when they start Tweeting nonsense, but for the most part I remain a blogging kind of a guy. One could argue whether it's my tendency towards logorrhea on the blog rendering me incapable of hewing to the 140 character limit for Twitter, but whatever the reason…
oracknows | January 18, 2010The double standard of the anti-vaccine "autism biomed" movement never ceases to amaze me.
Imagine if you will, that a pharmaceutical company examined a chemical used for industrial purposes. Imagine further that the chemical this pharmaceutical company decided to look at originated as an industrial chelator designed to separate heavy metals from polluted soil and mining drainage. Imagine still further that that pharmaceutical company wanted to use that chemical as a treatment for autism, a chelator to be given to children. Finally, imagine that the drug company was giving this chemical to…
oracknows | January 13, 2010Yesterday, I expressed dismay at how Dr. Mehmet Oz, the protege of Oprah Winfrey who now has his own popular syndicated daily show, recently named the quackery known as reiki as number one in his list of "Dr. Oz's ulimate alternatie medicine secrets," leading me to characterize him as having "gone completely over to the Dark Side." You, my readers, kindly provided me with a YouTube video of actual segments from the show in which Dr. Oz has a reiki master demonstrate reiki on an audience member:
Ugh. Get aload of this introduction:
Now you're about to see things that are going to challenge…
oracknows | January 11, 2010I've discussed why Barbara Loe Fisher is a hypocritical coward for trying to silence her opponents using the courts. Now Rebecca Watson, a.k.a., The Skepchick, schools Barbara Loe Fisher for in essence pissing on the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
For some reason, my irony meter didn't register the point that the Skepchick laid down. Perhaps it had already been so completely vaporized by the Loe Fisher's ranting about wanting a "fearless conversation about vaccines" hot on the heels of having tried to sue Dr. Offit for doing just that.
You know what's rather interesting, though? Ever…
oracknows | January 7, 2010I've been criticizing the grande dame of the anti-vaccine movement, Barbara Loe Fisher, for her cowardly attempt to shut up vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit and to intimidate journalists into not writing exposes of the anti-vaccine movement by suing Dr. Offit, Amy Wallace, and WIRED Magazine for Wallace's excellent article in which Dr. Offit was quoted as saying "She lies" about Loe Fisher. Such is her commitment to free speech that she is trying to shut down criticism through legal bullying.
That's why Barbara Loe Fisher's latest screed overloaded yet another of my irony meters and sizzled that…
oracknows | January 7, 2010As 2009 ended and 2010 began, I made a vow to myself to try to diversify the topics covered on this blog. Part of that vow was to try to avoid writing about vaccines and the anti-vaccine movement for more than a couple of days in a row. Unfortunately, even in the middle its very first full week, 2010 has already conspired to make a mockery of any "plans" I thought I might have for the blog, with a flurry of vaccine-related news items relevant to the pseudoscience that is the anti-vaccine movement coming fast and furious. Oh, well. I might as well just go with the flow and do what I do best--…
oracknows | January 6, 2010One of the key claims of the "autism biomedical" movement is that something about autism derives from or is exacerbated by the gut; i.e., that there is some sort of link between GI problems, particularly inflammatory diseases of the GI tract, and autism. Although I may not be as versed in the history of this claim as I could be, as far as I can tell, even if this idea didn't originate with Andrew Wakefield, he certainly did a lot to popularize it. Indeed, a common misconception about his misbegotten 1998 Lancet paper that launched the anti-MMR anti-vaccine movement in the U.K. is that it…
oracknows | January 5, 2010After yesterday's post about how anti-vaccine grande dame Barbara Loe Fisher is suing Dr. Paul Offit, almost certainly in order to harass and intimidate him into silence, there was something that still bugs me, and that's the issue of jurisdiction. The defendants live in three different states: Paul Offit in Pennsylvania, Amy Wallace in California, and Condé Nast in New York. For instance, get a load of this tortuous justification for suing in Virginia, straight from Loe Fisher's complaint:
8. This Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendants under Va. Code § 8.01- 328.1(A)(4) because…
oracknows | January 3, 2010In general, one of the biggest differences between those defending science-based medicine and those defending pseudoscience, quackery, and anti-science is that science inculcates in its adherents a culture of free and open debate. In marked contrast, those advocating pseudoscience tend to cultivate cultures of the echo chamber. Examples abound and include discussion forums devoted to "alternative" medicine like CureZone, where never is heard a discouraging word--because anyone expressing too much skepticism about the prevailing view on such forums invariably finds himself first shunned and…
oracknows | December 30, 2009You know, when Age of Autism starts announcing its yearly "people of the year" awards, there's always a lot of blog fodder there to be had. Given that this is the time of year when I ramp the blog down a bit and, trying to relax a little, don't spend as much time doing detailed deconstructions or analyzing peer-reviewed papers, it's perfect for some quick observations about the anti-vaccine movement, of which Generation Rescue promotes through its propaganda blog, Age of Autism. This time around, I'm noting how these year end awards reinforce the point that "autism advocacy" of the type that…
oracknows | December 29, 2009Vaccines save lives. In fact, they arguably save more lives than any other medical intervention devised by human beings. Unfortunately, the converse is also true. Anti-vaccine beliefs and the vaccine refusal that results from them kill. They leave children vulnerable to preventable diseases, and, sadly, here's yet more evidence that this is true:
At least 30 children have died in eastern At least 30 children have died in eastern Zimbabwe where members of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Faith church have refused to allow their children to be vaccinated against the deadly communicable disease.…
oracknows | December 29, 2009Remember how I said that I was trying to take it easy this week? I still am, but there's something bugging me enough to draw me out of my grant-induced cocoon for a little while in order to pontificate on it in the not-so-Respectfully Insolent way that I am so often wont to do. True, it's something that's been annoying me for a time now, but it's becoming acute as the end of the year approaches. The reason is simple. The anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism is starting to announce its 2009 awards. Regular readers may remember when AoA announced its 2008 awards. Truly, that was a hoot,…
oracknows | December 26, 2009While I'm recovering fro Christmas this weekend and away a good chunk of tomorrow, here's a question to ponder as 2009 draws to its inevitable close. Val Jones has listed what she views to be the top five threats to science-based medicine that dominated 2009 and look likely to continue to threaten science in medicine during 2010. So, to complement my previous question regarding the worst pseudoscience of the decade, I'd point to Val's post on the top five threats to science-based medicine of 2009 and ask: What were the worst threats to science-based medicine, not just of 2009, but of the…
oracknows | December 24, 2009If there's one thing that's irritated the crap out of me ever since I entered the medical field, it's celebrities with more fame than brains or sense touting various health remedies. Of late, three such celebrities have spread more misinformation and quackery than the rest of the second tier combined. Truly, together, they are the Unholy Trinity of Celebrity Quackery.
The first two of them, of course, are that not-so-dynamic duo of anti-vaccine morons, Jenny McCarthy and her much more famous and successful boyfriend Jim Carrey. Having apparently decided that selling "Indigo Child" woo was not…
oracknows | December 21, 2009It's the end, the end of the '70s
It's the end, the end of the century.
Joey Ramone, 1979
As amazing as it is to me, the first decade of the 21st century is fast approaching its end. It seems like only yesterday that my wife and I were waiting for the dawn of the new millennium with the fear that civilization would go kablooey because of the Y2K bug. (Remember that?) Obviously, civilization didn't end. Given the rise of pseudoscience over the last several years, it only seems that way sometimes. However, even though it's an entirely arbitrary construct and a human imposition of our own wishes…
oracknows | December 20, 2009If there's one thing that irritates me about the anti-vaccine movement, it's the utter disingenuousness of the movement. How often do we hear the claim from anti-vaccine loons that "we're not 'anti-vaccine'; we're 'pro-safe vaccine'"? I've tried to pin such people down time and time again to answer just what it would take in terms of scientific studies and evidence or in terms of what "toxins" would have to be removed to convince them that vaccines are sufficiently safe that they will have their children vaccinated? Inevitably, the answer involves levels of evidence that are beyond what can…
oracknows | December 11, 2009
Has it really been that long?
It was a dismally overcast Saturday five years ago when, on a whim after having read a TIME Magazine article about how 2004 was supposedly the Year of the Blogger, I sat down in front of my computer, found Blogspot, and the first incarnation of Respectful Insolence was born. If anyone is curious, this was my first test post, and this was my first substantive post (well, sort of). Every year (at least the ones where I remember my blogiversary, I find it particularly interesting to go back to the beginning and see how true to my original vision for this blog I've…