Jay Gordon
oracknows | January 20, 2017In a (very) few short hours, Donald Trump will take the oath of office and become the 45th President of the United States. I realize that I don't normally blog about politics, at least other than that related to medicine, but I make no bones about it. I'm dreading 12 Noon ET on January 20, 2017. There is more than enough reason for dread given the likely effect on medical science, at the very least. Also, Donald Trump is antivaccine. He's shown it through meetings with Andrew Wakefield and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the former of whom spoke a year ago on a "Conspira-Sea Cruise" and the latter of…
oracknows | July 2, 2015Dammit.
I had planned on posting something else tomorrow that, because it had been posted elsewhere, would be minimal work. The reason, of course, is because it's the 4th of July weekend and today is a federal holiday. Unfortunately, sometimes things happen that I cannot ignore, even though all sorts of other bloggers are writing about the same thing, because, well, it's something that goes to the very core of what this blog stands for. As you know, one of the most frequently addressed topics (certainly in the top three, if not number one) is the antivaccine movement, its pseudoscience, and…
oracknows | July 1, 2015My original intention was to write about something entirely different today, but, really, how could I, given that SB277 has become law in California and non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates are a thing of the past? The topic I had in mind for today can easily keep for a day or two anyway. Besides, what I want to contemplate now is how SB277 will work in practice. Sure, it's fun to watch the antivaccine fringe completely lose it as SB 277 got closer and closer to passing. Indeed, if you want to experience a combination of amusement and revulsion, just peruse the comments of this…
oracknows | June 19, 2015Even if you're a relative newbie to this blog, you probably wouldn't be particularly surprised to learn that I don't much like Dr. Mehmet Oz, a.k.a. "America's Doctor." Of course, I refer to him as something slightly different, namely "America's Quack," for a whole host of reasons, including his featuring psychic mediums like John Edward and Theresa Caputo, faith healers, Ayurveda, homeopaths, dubious dietary supplements, and even antivaccine loons like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Indeed, when about a year ago Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) hauled him in front of her Senate committee over his…
oracknows | February 24, 2015With the Disneyland measles outbreak still going strong and striking far more unvaccinated than vaccinated, it's not surprising that a discussion has begun in some states about lax policies that permit religious and/or philosophical exemptions. In Oregon, for example, the legislature is considering SB442, a bill apparently originally intended to provide a technical fix to the process for obtaining philosophical exemptions to vaccine mandates by giving parents deadlines to submit the required documentation for non-medical exemptions, but the antivaccine troops became totally riled up when the…
oracknows | February 15, 2015 Baratunde Thurston and Zanny Minton Bedoes react to a particularly ignorant bit of antivaccine misinformation by Bill Maher on Real Time With Bill Maher. (February 13, 2015)
I really don't want Mondays to be come "let's refute and make fun of the conspiratorial antivaccine nonsense Bill Maher said on his show Friday night." I really don't. However, I figured that I might have to devote Monday to that one more time this week after Maher really let his antivaccine freak flag fly again for the first time in five years on his February 6 show. As a result of the criticism, Maher apologists…
oracknows | January 29, 2015
Imagine, if you will, a time machine capsule going all the way back to the earliest days of this blog, back in 2005 and 2006. Now consider the antivaccine movement, which somehow I became very interested in very early, an interest that continues to this day. Do you remember one theme that I kept hitting again and again? Besides the pseudoscientific quackery often promoted by antivaccinationists, that is? That theme was false balance. Back when I first started blogging, no matter what the angle of the story, when the press reported about the topic of vaccines—or the topic of autism, for…
oracknows | January 14, 2015
Brief Orac follow up note, January 21, 2015: Antivaccine pediatrician "Dr. Bob" Sears responds to his patients' parents' concerns about the Disneyland measles outbreak. Hilarity ensues.
Last week, the self-proclaimed "happiest place on earth" wasn't so happy.
You've probably figured out that what I'm referring to is the latest measles outbreak. Some of you have been talking about it in the comments, and I keep seeing news about it. Finally, I couldn't resist applying a bit of not-so-Respectful Insolence to the whole situation. I realize that some of you might have seen this at a certain…
oracknows | October 3, 2014
Countering the misinformation regularly promulgated by the antivaccine movement, be it antivaccinationists who are completely off the deep end, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the crew at the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism, or that epitome of the Dunning-Kruger effect mixed with an annoying self-absorption and coffee klatch vibe (that is when it's not a wine party), The Thinking Moms' Revolution, or from seemingly more "reasonable" antivaccine advocates like pediatricians Robert "Dr. Bob" Sears or Dr. Jay Gordon. The reason is simple. Vaccines save lives. They prevent children from…
oracknows | April 3, 2014I appear to have fallen into one of my ruts again. Or maybe it's not a rut. I just feel as though I've been doing too many posts on the antivaccine movement, to the point where I wonder if I'm starting to fall into a rut. In actuality, it doesn't really matter. If I feel as though I'm getting tired of a topic, then that's enough. It's just that the antivaccine movement, even as bottomless a font of stupidity, misinformation, pseudoscience, and quackery as it is, sometimes goes on a tear. When it does that, I have a hard time restraining myself from trying to blog about all of it, as…
oracknows | March 25, 2014After the last couple of days of depressing posts about the utter failure of the FDA to do its job protecting cancer patients from the likes of Stanislaw burzynski, it's time to move on. Unfortunately, the first thing that caught my eye as I sat down to blog last night not only fried my irony meter as though a radioactive flame had been aimed at it by Godzilla itself but it also stomped that sucker flat as though Godzilla had jumped up and down on it. It came from one of the only places where the bloggers are so utterly without a sense of self-awareness that they could achieve such a feat. No…
oracknows | May 30, 2012Remember Dr. Jay?
Regular readers know about whom I speak. I'm talking about Dr. Jay Gordon, pediatrician to the stars' children. Dr. Jay has been a fixture on this blog on and off for seven years, first having popped in as a commenter way back on Respectful Insolence, Mark 1, when I first noted him promoting antivaccine nonsense claiming against all science that vaccines cause austism on—where else?—that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post. Since then, Dr. Jay has assiduously denied that he is antivaccine, all the while spewing antivaccine canards hither, thither, and yon…
palmd | February 18, 2009There was a piece of good news on vaccine front this week. The first judgments from the Autism Omnibus Trial were announced, and the special masters (who served as judges) agreed with the rest of the reality-based community in ruling that vaccines do not cause autism. The rulings weren't subtle, using phrases such as "misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment". This is the Dover of the "other" ID promotion movement.*
Like any cult, however, the infectious disease promotion movement is unlikely to be persuaded by any level of evidence. This, despite…