Details
Category: Newsflash
Hits: 7483
Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo in medicine.

Details
Category: Swift
Hits: 17755

Here on SWIFT, we’ve discussed the use of what’s known as “facilitated communication” [FC] a purported method of allowing autistic persons to express themselves while being unable to speak. Unquestionably, this simply does not work, and extensive investigations have established that fact, repeatedly. The danger of the FC travesty and the lengths to which public officials will go to embrace and use this nonsense through sheer ignorance was never better illustrated than by the situation in which Julian Wendrow and his wife Thal of Oakland County, California, recently found themselves. It was a result of the Oakland County prosecutor choosing to accept FC as a legitimate means of obtaining information from a child, Mr. Wendrow’s severely autistic daughter. The father was prosecuted and jailed after being accused of sexually assaulting his child, even though a physical exam showed no sign of such an assault. As a result, the family sued in federal court in 2008, alleging 38 counts of false imprisonment, wrongful prosecution and other atrocities. They have been awarded a $1.8 million settlement.

Details
Category: Swift
Hits: 16062

James Randi and Michael Shermer discuss 9/11 conspiracies, anti-vaccination hysteria, psychics, "Power" bracelets, and the JREF's Million Dollar Challenge on Fox's Stossel show.

Those outside of the United States should be able to view it here.

Details
Category: Amazing Meeting
Hits: 8271

In an effort to make our extensive video library available online free of charge, The James Randi Educational Foundation is posting high quality digital video lectures and sessions from previous Amaz!ng Meetings and other events on randi.org. Check back often to see the latest video content.

Australian skeptic, podcaster, author, television personality, and professional origamist Richard Saunders recorded at The Amaz!ng Meeting 7. Saunders discusses the origami Pigasus and dowsing as a model for teaching critical thinking to students.

Details
Category: Swift
Hits: 12287

The ridiculous “anti-vaccination” panic that has seized the attention and devotion of uninformed Hollywood celebrities – and thus of the planet – has culminated, for rational people, with the latest findings just published by the British Medical Journal [BMJ]. A short history:

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the author of the paper in the Lancet medical journal which started the brouhaha, had his medical license revoked in May of 2010 when it became clear that he had misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all of the dozen patients whose cases formed the basis of the study. Five of them had already shown developmental problems before they received the vaccine, and three of them never had autism at all. This was a purposeful fraud, and we now know – thanks to the new BMJ report that looked into it – that Wakefield received more than £435,000 pounds (US$675,000) paid to him by a UK law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers. This was a serious conflict of interest that Wakefield failed to disclose in his article. And, obviously, the intent of that law firm must now be brought up for examination, as well. The damage to public health systems around the world, happily fueled by biased media reporting and ineffectual response from government agencies, researchers, and journals, panicked many parents and led to a sharp drop in the number of children being inoculated against measles, mumps and rubella.

  1. Can Anyone Help...?
  2. The Mothering.com Bait and Switch (part 1 of 2)
  3. Danger, Will Robinson -- and Everyone Else!
  4. Last Week at Science-Based Medicine