The Moral Outrage of the Anti-Vaccine Movement – VAXOPEDIA

It doesn’t take much to outrage folks these days.

It seems like there is always someone, someplace that is outraged about something.

Ironically, the latest faux outrage comes from anti-vaccine folks... The Moral Outrage of the Anti-Vaccine Movement – VAXOPEDIA

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The post is followed by a recommended reading list that would fill a small library, and it wouldn't be a bad thing if it did. Enjoy.

Dr Bob Sears medical license on probation resulting from his anti-vaccine views

On 27 June 2018, Dr Robert (Bob) Sears, an anti-vaccine pediatrician, agreed to a stipulation with the California Medical Board that put his license to practice on probation and subjected him to a set of non-trivial conditions. The revocation of the medical license of Dr Bob Sears was stayed by the Medical Board – it will not become operative unless he violates the conditions – but given the specific allegations in the complaint and the fact that this was his first disciplinary action, an immediate full revocation was not likely. The sanction is non-trivial, and a clear warning against future misconduct >> Dr Bob Sears medical license on probation resulting from his anti-vaccine views

Charlatanism: fantasy or dishonesty?

In his Homeopathy: The Undiluted Facts Edzard Ernst delineates between two types of charlatan: the dishonest and the fantasist. I don’t know and have never met Sally Lloyd, a homeopath who charges for her services. Neither do I know whether she actually offers them to people diagnosed with cancer. But if she spews forth the following disgraceful misinformation to anybody daft or desperate enough to ‘consult’ her, there is something seriously amiss. [Read more... ]

Come celebrate the positive energy… !!! ??? !!!

Words like these are sure to persuade me that this chiropractic conference announcement is an invitation to abandon reason and dive into pure, unappetising BS. Reading the full text confirms my suspicion; here are a few quotes:
… Chiropractic practitioners are blazing new trails in pediatrics, neurology, neuroplasticity, and multisensory integration, pushing the understanding and […]

Read the rest here: Come celebrate the positive energy… !!! ??? !!!

How The Parents Of Autistic Children Are Being Targeted By Misinformation Online

It started simply enough – with suggestions that her child should follow an unremarkable-sounding special diet. “They did these tests: a stool test and a urine test,” Layla (not her real name) tells BuzzFeed News. “I can’t remember where they were from – not the NHS, obviously, but some lab. The results had all these red markers.” The tests, from an alternative medicine practitioner who was recommended by and paid for by a major charity, apparently showed that Layla’s son, an autistic boy who was 3 at the time, had various issues with his gut and his metabolism. “I was shocked,” says Layla. “I didn’t realise – my son had all these deficiencies, these toxins in his system.”[...]

Read full exposé: How The Parents Of Autistic Children Are Being Targeted By Misinformation Online

Yet another study proves vaccines do not cause autism – Depleted cranium

Vaccines don’t cause autism. We know that. We’ve known it for a while. There has never been a shred of evidence that they do. There have been studies done that conclusively show they do not.

Now a new study has come out showing that there is zero increase in the risk of autism in children who are given the MMR vaccine, even in those who are already at high risk for autism. This refutes the claim made by some that vaccines contribute to autism or are a factor that exacerbates it...

Read more: Yet another study proves vaccines do not cause autism – Depleted cranium

UK Homeopathy Regulation: Homeopathy and Autism - Part Three

The potential implications of the accreditation of the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) as a voluntary register by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) were discussed in a previous post. As discussed in the last post, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) did rule against Teddington Homeopathy's promotion of CEASE Therapy. Teddington Homeopathy chose not to comply.

This ruling does set a precedent and one that the SoH would do well to take notice of...

Read more: UK Homeopathy Regulation: Homeopathy and Autism - Part Three

UK Homeopathy Regulation: Homeopathy and Autism - Part Two

The previous post outlined (probably with some errors) the basics of the diagnosis and causation of Austistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It also touched on the prognosis for those diagnosed. It raised questions about the competence of lay homeopaths in terms of their ability to diagnose ASD, whether their ideas about causation bear any relationship to reality and hinted at the ethics of offering treatment.

This post will examine the nature of homeopathic treatment of autism, in particular CEASE therapy...

Read more: UK Homeopathy Regulation: Homeopathy and Autism - Part Two

UK Homeopathy Regulation: Homeopathy and Autism - Part One

Questions about the competence of lay homeopaths are often raised even by other homeopaths. Although Codes of Ethics and Practice often state that a practitioner must practice within their limits, there seems to little understanding of what these limits might be...

Read full post: UK Homeopathy Regulation: Homeopathy and Autism - Part One

On the continuation of David Tredinnick’s ministering for quackery

Though of a reasonable, easy-going disposition, I do, like most, have my bugbears. Chief among which is people who lie for a living. Chief among whom are quacks. And those in public positions of influence who promote them and their snake-oil wares.

Re-enter David Tredinnick, Conservative MP for Bosworth in Leicestershire, whose continued dim-witted advocation of the expending of public money on disproven and unproven treatments has led me to label him the ‘Minister for Quackery’. (It is, I think, the nearest he will ever get to being an actual Minister for anything.)

[Read more... ]

Encyclopedia of American Loons: #1748: Brian Hooker

...But who is Brian Hooker? Hooker has a degree in biochemistry, but has no formal training in statistics, epidemiology, or any field pertinent to the study of vaccines or autism. But he is a hardcore anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist. Hooker also has a son with autism and an open case claiming vaccine injury before the Vaccine Court. He is also a board member of an anti-vaccine organization called Focus Autism....

Full lunacy here: Encyclopedia of American Loons: #1748: Brian Hooker

Why are there so many reports of autism following vaccination? A mathematical assessment | The Logic of Science

The idea that vaccines cause autism is one of the most persistent myths that I have ever encountered, and it seems that no amount of evidence will ever cause it to disappear. Indeed, I recently wrote a lengthy post in which I thoroughly reviewed the scientific literature on this topic, and I showed that there are no high quality studies supporting this myth, but there are multiple very large studies that debunked it. Nevertheless, many people responded to the post by insisting that vaccines must cause autism because there are so many cases of parents reporting the onset of autism shortly after vaccinating. They were adamant that these anecdotes could not be chance results and must mean that vaccines cause autism. To quote one commenter:

“How can you sit there and say that observing an adverse reaction AFTER a vaccine is given doesn’t mean it was the vaccine? So, what…? It’s just a random coincidence? I think not...”

Read the full post, accessible even to the worst of mathematicians, right here: Why are there so many reports of autism following vaccination? A mathematical assessment | The Logic of Science

Vaxxed threatens Fiona O’Leary – Phillipe Diaz doubles down

In a previous post, I addressed the question whether there was any basis to the threat of a defamation suit by Phillipe Diaz, CEO of the Vaxxed distributor, Cinema Libre, against Irish autism advocate Fiona O’Leary, and concluded that most likely there isn’t. Since then, Ms. O’Leary has been interviewed and spoken on the issue in Irish newspapers (here and here), Jezebel, and an Irish radio show, and it’s clear the attempt to silence her failed, and probably backfired. This article is an update to what has happened after Vaxxed threatens Fiona O’Leary.

 Read the full post: Vaxxed threatens Fiona O’Leary – Phillipe Diaz doubles down

Video campaign: "Vaccines do NOT cause Autism"

***Please share thank you *** pic.twitter.com/Or8vFl36Ef

— Fiona Pettit O'Leary (@fionapettit71) 24 July 2016

Autistic children are like chimps and dogs, don’t you know?

If you need any more proof of the kind of stupidity being thrown around by anti-vaccine loons, look no further than this video:


(Someone stored the whole video on Google Drive since these things tend to disappear.) In the video, Del Bigtree is sitting at a table with some anti-vaccine luminaries talking about autistic children. […]

Read more at: Autistic children are like chimps and dogs, don’t you know? by Reuben

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See also:
Respectful Insolence: Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree: Privileged white males harming African-Americans with antivaccine propaganda

For the anti-vaccinationists out there: The results of a real “vaxed versus unvaxed” study – Respectful Insolence

In many ways, the anti-vaccine movement is highly mutable. However, this mutability is firmly based around keeping one thing utterly constant, and that one thing is vaccines. No matter what the evidence, no matter what the science, no matter how much observational, scientific, and epidemiological evidence is arrayed against them, to the relentlessly self-confident members of the anti-vaccine movement, it’s always about the vaccines. Always. Vaccines are always the root many human health problems, be they asthma, autoimmune diseases, autism, and chronic diseases of all types. Everything else is negotiable. For instance, back when Andrew Wakefield ignited a scare about the MMR vaccine by publishing a fraudulent case series linking the MMR to a new syndrome consisting of regressive autism and enterocolitis, it was the measles vaccine that caused this syndrome. Here in the U.S., it was the mercury in the thimerosal preservative that used to be used in many childhood vaccines until 2001 that was the cause of all evil. However, as scientists did more and more studies, testing vaccines to see if they were associated with an increased risk of autism and found zero, nada, zip association with either vaccines or the thimerosal preservative in vaccines, the anti-vaccine movement was nothing if not mutable. Before long, Jenny McCarthy was declaring that it was the “toxins” in vaccines that were causing autism, and Generation Rescue was asserting that children were getting “too many too soon.” Of course, as far as the anti-vaccine movement was concerned, the beauty of these ideas was (and is) that they are much harder to falsify scientifically because they are so much more vague...

 For the anti-vaccinationists out there: The results of a real “vaxed versus unvaxed” study – Respectful Insolence

Homeopathy promotion at its most despicable (and most dangerous) | Edzard Ernst

I thought I had seen everything that is lamentable about homeopathy. When I came across this article, I had to change my opinion. It is a more despicable, unethical and dangerous promotion of falsehoods than I could have imagined.

Strong words? Read for yourself:

There are treatments that can heal vaccine damage, but few physicians in the conventional medical care […]

Read on: Homeopathy promotion at its most despicable (and most dangerous)

Fran Sheffield on Homeopathy and Autism

The post Fran Sheffield on Homeopathy and Autism by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice.

Notorious woomeister Fran Sheffield, caught lying blatantly and unrepentantly by the Aussie authorities and rightfully nicked for it, runs the Homeopathy Plus webshite with her equally deluded husband. He claims his wife’s sugar pills saved his life “more than once” and continue to do so. He provides no evidence for this remarkable and highly improbable assertion. The whole family appears to have bought, or been brainwashed, into the homeopathy cult, which they relentlessly push and profit from.

Sheffield is also thick as thieves with the Australian (anti)Vaccination Network, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days. Almost amusingly, she objects to all these wishy-washy “we’re not anti-vaccine, we’re pro-choice” mouthings and has urged anti-vaxxers to wear the label with pride. She has been seen calling for (usually homeopathic) alternatives to vaccines, which shows how pathetic her grasp of immunisation is, in spite of her claim to have nursing training. You either … Continue reading →

Autism is linked to gut problems (so sorry, Andy Wakefield) | WWDDTYDTY

Of all the persecuted Brave Maverick Doctors in WDDTY’s pantheon, none is more Brave or indeed more Maverick than Saint Andrew of Wakefraud.

 Put simply, WDDTY desperately wants Wakefield to have been right, and will miss no opportunity to rewrite history in the service of this delusion.

As much as the medical community likes to discredit Andrew Wakefield for his theory about the MMR link to autism, research keeps supporting his central argument: autism is somehow related to the gut...

Read on: Autism is linked to gut problems (so sorry, Andy Wakefield) | WWDDTYDTY

Which is it, Mr. Handley?

For the uninitiated, JB Handley may not be a familiar name. It certainly wasn’t for me up until about seven years ago. Mr. Handley is one of many people behind “Age of Autism” and “Generation Rescue.” Both anti-vaccine groups who seek to link vaccines to an innumerable number of conditions. They also seek to link vaccines to autism.

Mr. Handley’s story of how he became such an ardent anti-vaccine activist varies depending on who you ask. Heck, it varies depending on what he feels like writing about it. For example, in the Generation Rescue page I linked above, the story is this:[…]

Read more at: Which is it, Mr. Handley? by Reuben