Results for: autism

The war in California over nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates

California is about to pass a law that would eliminate personal belief exemptions to school vaccine requirements. The antivaccine movement is losing its collective mind over it. Let's just say that Holocaust analogies are flying fast and furious.

/ June 15, 2015

Leaky Bowel

We are at a disadvantage. We have to rely on reality to validate the practice of medicine. Anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, chemistry, the basic sciences that made up the first two years of medical school education and a huge chunk of pre-med. And we have to rely on the truth, as slippery a concept as that can be. I can’t just make up...

/ June 12, 2015

Dubious MTHFR genetic mutation testing

Naturopaths, along with some chiropractors, acupuncturists and a few “integrative” physicians, are advising patients that they should be tested for MTHFR genetic mutations. Typically, the naturopath will start with the pitch that “conventional” medical doctors are ignoring your genes as a possible source of your health problems. (And it is mostly naturopaths who are doing this – just Google “naturopath MTHFR genetic mutation”...

/ June 11, 2015

The measles vaccine protects against more than just the measles

One of the disadvantages of writing for this blog is that sometimes I feel as though I spend so much time deconstructing bad science and pseudoscience in medicine that I’m rarely left with the time or the opportunity to discuss some interesting science. Of course, even when I do that, usually it’s in the context of that very same bad science or...

/ May 11, 2015

“Science.” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I’ve discussed on many occasions over the years how antivaccine activists really, really don’t want to be known as “antivaccine.” However, if there’s one thing that rivals how much antivaccinationists detest being called “antivaccine,” it’s how much they detest being called antiscience. To try to deny that they are antiscience, they will frequently invoke ridiculous analogies such as claiming that being for...

/ May 11, 2015

A journey to alternative and integrative medicine apostasy

WIRED posted a story about Jim Laidler recently discussing his movement away from autism biomed and back to science. It's a good story, that deserves sharing, and explores many of the motivations people have for embracing alternative medicine.

/ May 4, 2015

Deconstructing “200 Evidence Based Reasons NOT To Vaccinate”

So I was checking out my Facebook page when I stumbled across an article, entitled “200 Evidence Based Reasons NOT To Vaccinate” [PDF download] posted by a physician friend. He and I often post medically related articles for a laugh, and every so often, we stumble across something like this, and share it with those whom we know will laugh at the...

/ May 3, 2015

Legislative Alchemy: Naturopathic licensing and practice expansion 2015

Naturopathy is chock-full of quackery. No doubt about it. Here at SBM and elsewhere, the seemingly limitless nonsense that can be incorporated into naturopathic practice has been documented time and again: detoxification, food “sensitivities,” anti-vaccination ideology, fake diseases (chronic yeast overgrowth, adrenal fatigue, chronic Lyme disease), bogus tests (also here), homeopathy, chelation therapy, assorted other odd-ball treatments, lack of ethical standards, and...

/ April 30, 2015

Bill Maher: Still an antivaccine crank after all these years

Bill Maher likes to represent himself as the epitome of rationality, primarily on the basis of his rejection of religion. However, rejection of religion does not necessarily make one a skeptic. Maher has demonstrated this over the last decade based on his embrace of antivaccine pseudoscience and other unscientific views. This time around, he fawned over antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

/ April 27, 2015

“America’s Quack” strikes back

Those of you who read my not-so-super-secret other blog (or who follow the news) familiar with this, but I feel that what happened over the last couple of weeks with respect to a man to whom I like to refer as “America’s Quack” is worth posting right here, in modified form. Last week, a group of ten doctors led by Dr. Henry...

/ April 25, 2015