Quackery
oracknows | February 25, 2009Over the last few days, it seems to me, I've been blogging so much about antivaccine lunacy that I was beginning to wonder whether I should rename the blog "Respectfully Insolent Antivaccine Slapdowns." As good as it's been to dwell on seeing the antivaccine movement suffer two major setbacks in 2009 even before we've reached the end of February, it's time to move on for a while; that is, unless the antivaccine movement does or writes something stupid enough to tempt my attention back. In the meantime, as I get back into the swing of blogging again, I haven't yet gone through my pile of…
oracknows | February 23, 2009One thing that's become apparent to me so far in 2009 is that, while 2008 was the year of the antivaccinationist, 2009 is already shaping up to be a very bad year for antivaccinationists. A very bad year indeed, and this is a very, very good thing--if it can be sustained.
But first, let's take a look at last year. In 2008, Jenny McCarthy was the new and fresh celebrity face of the movement that believes that autism and all manner of other neurodevelopmental disorders are caused by vaccines and that the government and big pharma are suppressing The Truth. She had emerged in the fall of 2007…
oracknows | February 20, 2009I knew it. I just knew it.
I just knew that when I finally decided to come back from my absence from this blog that something very unpleasant and sad would be waiting for me. True, there had actually been one very nasty thing that I simply had to deal with a few days ago, but that was a particularly vile and despicable human being who, believe it or not, was not John Best. That is not the case here, although the misinformation being pushed is truly disturbing.
Not surprisingly, what awaited me upon my decision to come back was posted earlier this week on that repository of antivaccine…
oracknows | February 19, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
oracknows | February 18, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
oracknows | February 18, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
oracknows | February 15, 2009What's an advocate of evidence- and science-based medicine to think about the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, better known by its abbrevation NCCAM? As I've pointed out before, I used to be somewhat of a supporter of NCCAM. I really did, back when I was more naïve and idealistic. Indeed, as I mentioned before, when I first read Wally Sampson's article Why NCCAM should be defunded, I thought it a bit too strident and even rather close-minded. At the time, I thought that the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff was to apply the scientific method to the…
oracknows | February 15, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging. Because I foresaw this day coming, however, I did set up a series of "Best of" reposts to autopost for you while I am in mourning. Some I have even updated and/or spiffed up with actual editing. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. This particular one I've updated slightly.…
oracknows | February 13, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging. Because I foresaw this day coming, however, I did set up a series of "Best of" reposts to autopost for you while I am in mourning. Some I have even updated and/or spiffed up with actual editing. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don'…
oracknows | February 12, 2009Last night, I lambasted Countdown host Keith Olbermann for having been played by the antivaccine movement and having unjustly slimed British journalist Brian Deer. Clearly, Olbermann was so blinded by his hatred of Rupert Murdoch that all chief apologist for the antivaccine movement, former freelance journalist David Kirby, had to do was mention that The Times of London, the newspaper that published Brian Deer's excellent investigative report nailing anti-MMR guru Andrew Wakefield to the wall for falsifying data, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and it was like waving the proverbial red cape in…
oracknows | February 11, 2009Stick a fork in Keith Olbermann. He's done.
He has now officially degenerated into a liberal version of Rush Limbaugh, except that Rush Limbaugh is occasionally funny. Maybe he's more like Sean Hannity, particularly in his apparent dedication to the truth, or, rather, lack thereof. Hannity detests liberals and will immediately attack on the slightest pretense, even if the information given to him of "liberal wrongdoing" is dubious or outright wrong. Like Hannity, Olbermann will never turn down an opportunity to attack Bill O'Reilly or his paymaster Rupert Murdoch. Somtimes it's justified, but…
oracknows | February 11, 2009I have to say, this is getting monotonous.
Let me back up a minute. One of the most common beliefs among users and advocates of "complementary and alternative" medicine (CAM) is that supplementation with vitamins will have all sorts of beneficial health effects. True, this belief is also pervasive among people who wouldn't go to an acupuncturist if you held a gun to their head, but it has become most associated with CAM. That this is so can actually be viewed as evidence of just how successful CAM activists have been in completely yoking all manner of lifestyle interventions to prevent or…
oracknows | February 10, 2009I'm not as big a fan of Keith Olbermann as I used to be. Indeed, sometimes he strikes me as the liberal version of Rush Limbaugh, not to mention a blowhard. However, occasionally, he still has it, and when he's on, no one skewers the dishonest better than he does. For instance, after a media flack and the usual inclusion of Bill O'Reilly as runners up, meet Andrew Wakefield, the Worst Person in the World for February 10, 2009:
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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
That about sums it up right now.
I wonder how long before the antivaccinationist loons…
oracknows | February 10, 2009Poor Jeni Barnett.
You remember Jeni Barnett, don't you? She's the U.K. radio host whose ill-informed rants against vaccines Ben Goldacre exposed so gloriously last week. Unfortunately, the price Ben paid consisted of threats of legal action for "copyright infringement" in the form of his having posted audio of the relevant segment of Barnett's show. Yes, LBC, the radio station on which Barnett's show runs, threatened to sue, forcing Ben to take down the audio. However, as almost always happens when a blogger is threatened in such a manner, the specter of legal action led to the audio files…
oracknows | February 10, 2009Because of the fallout from the revelation by Brian Deer that very likely Andrew Wakefield, hero of the antivaccine movement but, alas for his worshipers, one of the most dishonest and incompetent scientists who ever lived, had almost certainly falsified data for his infamous 1998 Lancet paper that launched a decade-long anti-MMR hysteria that shows no signs of abating, I ended up not coming back to a story I was very interested in. Although this story is about Holocaust denial, the questions raised by it are applicable not only to history and Holocaust denial, but to any area of science or…
oracknows | February 9, 2009Not again.
I have no way of knowing if the media in my hometown happen to be more credulous when it comes to pseudoscience than average, but, given the number of stories referred to me emanating from Detroit and its surrounding suburbs, you'll forgive me if I'm very depressed right now. For instance, we have "investigative reporter" Steve Wilson of WXYZ Channel 7 Action News, who, although claiming the title of "Chief Investigator" for that station, clearly couldn't investigate his way out of a paper bag--at least when it comes to medical stories--given that he is known for routinely…
oracknows | February 7, 2009Pity 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 colon, a study that was followed up four years later with a paper that claimed to have found the strain of attenuated measles virus in the MMR in the colons of autistic children by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It would be one thing if these studies were sound…
oracknows | February 7, 2009Sometimes, woo makes the news.
Does anyone remember "Professor" Bill Nelson, the cross-dressing "inventor" who created a most amazing woo machine? I've written about it three times before:
Your Friday Dose of Woo: Miraculous quest for the quantum
Your Friday Dose of Woo: Serious woo from Down Under
The SCIO, Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface, and Bill Nelson: Better late than never--or maybe not
This guy sells his device for $20,000 a pop and claims he sells 40 machines a month.
Now, check out this Marketplace episode, Miracle Makers or Money Takers? Watch the whole thing.
It never…
oracknows | February 6, 2009If I lived in the U.K., I don't know if I could blog. After all, the U.K. has some of the most plaintiff-friendly libel laws in the world, far more so than here in the U.S., in that in a libel case it is up to the defendant to prove that what he wrote is true, not the plaintiff to prove it false and defamatory. Just go back to 2000 and the most depressing exhibition of that very principle, namely disgraced pseudohistorian David Irving's libel suit against Professor Deborah Lipstadt for having referred to him as a Holocaust denier (which he undoubtedly is) in her book Denying the Holocaust:…
oracknows | February 6, 2009
I realize that I've been neglecting my woo. Indeed, yesterday I noticed that it's been a month and a half since I did a real Friday Dose of Woo. Of course, that particular installation of my long-running blog series (over two and a half years!) was some incredibly powerful woo. In fact, it was titanic, mind-bogglingly amazing woo. We're talking Lionel Mllgrom-grade woo. Actually, we're talking Lionel Milgrom himself, a level of sheer looniness that few, if any, can match, much less surpass. Once you've experienced the sheer power of his quantum homeopathic madness, it's hard not to become…