Says Barbara Ellen in The Observer:
Single jab vaccines were (still are) completely unregulated. It was not possible to buy them from the NHS, so one had to trawl the internet. In the end, the person who injected my daughter sat in an office rented for the morning, with an open suitcase full of vaccine. As [...]
From Max Dunbar’s review of Damian Thompson’s excellent little book Counterknowledge:
Imagine being a 9/11 Truther or a believer in homeopathy. You have unearthed a vast, hidden conspiracy that most of the world has completely missed. Either it is the conspiracy of PNAC engineering the Twin Towers demolitions as a pretext to declare war against the [...]
Since I do not have time, or the inclination, to respond to the reams of material that anti-vaccine advocates can cut and paste into comment boxes, any such comments will be deleted or treated as spam. While I defend your right to believe and propagate such nonsense, I have the right to choose who can [...]
One would think that the media had absolutely no effect on the propagation of the anti-scientific MMR vaccine-autism hoax given the coverage they are currently putting out about the GMC case. If the press were subject to the same scrutiny and regulation that Wakefield is being subjected to then many of them would be struck [...]
A BBC report with written by Nick Triggle choses an interesting word to describe scientific disagreement with Andrew Wakefield (Hat-tip Butterflies and Wheels):
Scores of campaigners, watched by police, had gathered from early morning waving placards in support of Dr Andrew Wakefield.
Most were parents with autistic children wanting to show support for the man who made [...]
Here’s Inderjit Singh, a sikh BBC 4 Thought for the Day author, on the human embryology bill, proving that it isn’t just christians who are willing to misrepresent:
What is particularly concerning about the Bill’s proposals to allow the creation of part human and part animal embryos is, that while it may help in combating illnesses [...]
So what happens when you report a suspected adverse drug reaction to a scheme like the UK’s Yellow Card scheme or the US Medwatch scheme? Although individual reports are examined, large amounts of data can be used to look for drug safety signals. Such signals are a sign that an adverse effect may be associated [...]
The Guardian reports on some scientists’ criticisms of the clerical attack on science in the UK:
Dr Stephen Minger, director of the stem cell biology laboratory, King’s College, London, said: “You could perceive that they’re saying this out of real lack of understanding, or you could be more cynical and say they’re doing it to ratchet [...]
“Fifteen percent of the world consumes 80% of the world’s drugs [medical] by volume.”
From Richard Laing, WHO.