Encyclopedia of American Loons: #274: Joseph “Joe” Mercola

The Richard Hoagland of medicine, Joseph Mercola is an osteopath and a frighteningly popular alternative medicine guru and (more or less) cult leader. He advocates and takes seriously more or less any idiotic crackpot or anti-science idea he comes across, including but not limited to flu-denialism and anti-vaxx – even going so far as to work with Barbara Loe Fischer. He has claimed that modern medicine kills more people than it helps...

More tinfoil hattery here: Encyclopedia of American Loons: #274: Joseph “Joe” Mercola

Encyclopedia of American Loons: #262: Jenny McCarthy

The term “indigo child" was introduced by psychic reader Nancy Ann Tappe and popularized by our old friend Lee Carroll (of Kryon). According to Carroll indigo children represent the next step in human evolution, but we close-minded normal folks fail to recognize their potential and classify them as attention-deficit instead.

Now, Jenny McCarthy used to believe that she was an indigo mother and her son was an even more evolved crystal child (she even ran the website Indigo Moms). In 2007, however, McCarthy attended the University of Google for some weeks and decided that her child was vaccine damaged instead...

Full gory details at: Encyclopedia of American Loons: #262: Jenny McCarthy

Matthias Rath – steal this chapter – Bad Science

This is the “missing chapter” about vitamin pill salesman Matthias Rath. Sadly I was unable to write about him at the time that book was initially published, as he was suing my ass in the High Court. The chapter is now available in the new paperback edition, and I’ve posted it here for free so that nobody loses out.

Although the publishers make a slightly melodramatic fuss about this in the promo material, it is a very serious story about the dangers of pseudoscience, as I hope you’ll see, and it was also a pretty unpleasant episode, not just for me, but also for the many other people he’s tried to sue, including Medecins Sans Frontieres and more. If you’re ever looking for a warning sign that you’re on the wrong side of an argument, suing Medecins Sans Frontières is probably a pretty good clue.

Anyway, here it is, please steal it, print it, repost it, whatever, it’s free under a Creative Commons license, details at the end. If you prefer it is available as a PDF here, or as a word document here. Happy Easter!

This is an extract from
BAD SCIENCE by Ben Goldacre
Published by Harper Perennial 2009.

You are free to copy it, paste it, bake it, reprint it, read it aloud, as long as you don’t change it – including this bit – so that people know that they can find more ideas for free at www.badscience.net


Read the "missing chapter" HERE

Hotze Health and Wellness Center

You can’t say we’re not open-minded. If you’re daft enough to tweet a link to a business with the tautological name of Hotze Health and Wellness Center and the tag #vaxfax, there’s a good chance one of us will take a look and then blog about it. Of course, if you’re toting a load of well-rotted WTFuckery as medical advice, then you must expect the slating you so richly deserve....

Read on: Hotze Health and Wellness Center

Pulp, Le Bikini 25 May 2011

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FFS of the Day: Celeb "Advice" Part the Thirst - Plague of Mice

Pepper Potts reveals her favourite way of torturing Tony Stark: QOTD: A Hangover Cure From Fishsticks Paltrow! (caution, contains Michael K). Yep, the great mind behind GOOP (dot com, no seriously, I’m not kidding you) has Spoken and she has the ultimate remedy for a morning head...

Read more: FFS of the Day: Celeb "Advice" Part the Thirst - Plague of Mice