24 May 2013 by Scott Gavura
Are sugar pills effective substitutes for vaccines? That’s what some are asking about Health Canada’s decision to approve 82 homeopathic “nosodes” which are sold by homeopaths as vaccine alternatives. Homeopathy is an elaborate placebo system of sugar pills. Of all alternative medicine, homeopathy is the most implausible of them all. Based on the absurd notion [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Canada, Health Policy, Skepticism, Vaccines0 Comments
24 April 2013 by Michael Kruse
It’s National Immunization Awareness Week in Canada and across the world, and UNICEF is reporting the failure of Canada to achieve the 95% immunization rate required to protect the community from resurgences of deadly and debilitating infectious disease. At 84%, we are even below the UK, which is experiencing a severe measles outbreak, and we [...]
Posted in Canada, Health Policy, Skepticism, Vaccines3 Comments
20 March 2013 by Ethan Clow
(Note – this is crossed posted to Radio Freethinker) It’s been a busy month for skeptical activists in Vancouver. I wanted to write about some of the recent news regarding an anti-vaccination conference that was held at the Simon Fraser University, here in Vancouver. The anti-vaccination conference was organized by this group: the Vaccine Resistance [...]
Posted in British Columbia, Canada, Health, Vaccines5 Comments
18 January 2013 by Michael Kruse
This is a repost of an article that appeared on the Huffington Post Canada blog site on January 17 2013. There is a slowly rising tide of uncertainty in Canada over the necessity and safety of vaccines for childhood infectious disease. While the safety and efficacy of vaccines is very well established, doubt continues to be [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health Policy, Skepticism, Vaccines1 Comment
31 August 2012 by Richelle McCullough
I don’t know what it is about vaccination that attracts so much vitriol, but in light of the recent pertussis outbreak which has claimed the life of an Albertan infant, I am loath to let anti-vaccine apologetics stand unchallenged. Today’s offering at the altar of McCarthy comes via Canadian pharmaceutical policy researcher, Alan Cassels. [...]
Posted in Health, Skepticism, Vaccines11 Comments
10 April 2012 by Scott Gavura
This is the first of a series of posts adapting a presentation made at The Ontario Public Health Convention in April, 2011. The presentation, “Fighting in the Trenches: Countering Anti-Vaccine Sentiment with Social Media” was a panel discussion from Skeptic North contributors Scott Gavura and Kimberly Hébert: One of the best parts of the infectious [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Skepticism, Vaccines8 Comments
11 February 2012 by Richelle McCullough
9 Questions That Stump Every Pro-Vaccine Advocate and Their Claims found its way onto the Facebook page for the Winnipeg Skeptics when a member’s friend posted it, along with the qualification “if you can give me a good, scientifically-backed answer to each of these questions, I will vaccinate my children.” Oh, if it only were all [...]
Posted in Vaccines20 Comments
27 January 2012 by Richelle McCullough
While doing some digging into the quackery of a local acupuncturist, I came across a sentiment that I found more than usually appalling. In her story of why she became an acupuncturist, she tells a melodramatic tale about a positive Pap smear test result that changed her life*. There’s all the usual makings of an [...]
Posted in Alberta, Alternative Medicine, Health, Medicine, Skepticism, Vaccines21 Comments
30 November 2011 by Richelle McCullough
Source There has been much abuzz about “pox parties” – the practice of parents getting a bunch of unvaccinated kids together with an infected one (pick one, really, though chicken pox is the focus of the recent article in Time) in the hope that their little sweethearts become ill and therefore “naturally” immune to the [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Skepticism, Vaccines81 Comments
24 January 2011 by Erik Davis
I came down with a nasty cold before the holidays – so bad that I briefly thought I had the flu, and was cursing myself for having waited so long to get the flu shot, which I’d received just before the symptoms began. Amidst all the sniffling and groaning and self-pitying, it occurred to me [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Diet and Nutrition, Health, Medical Conditions, Medicinal Advertising, Skepticism, Vaccines27 Comments
More consequences of calling sugar pills “safe and effective”
Crack Your Back instead of a Vial of Vaccine?
Toronto Media, false balance, and the lack of evidence for claims about MIA vet John Hartley Robertson
How Western journalists in Vietnam and POW NGOs were not fooled by tales of MIA Vet back from the dead
Did a Canadian filmmaker find a left behind Vietnam vet or did credulous Toronto media give new life to an old scam?
