Gary Goldman
oracknows | December 26, 2012I hope that you and yours are having a fantastic holiday season thus far. Yesterday, we had a great family gathering, after which I settled down to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special; all in all, a most excellent Christmas Day. Unfortunately, towards the later part of the day, someone out there sent me an e-mail and, fool that I was, I actually read it. (Who is sending e-mails about bad science to random bloggers on Christmas evening, I ask?) So when I woke up this morning, fool again that I am, I actually read the danged thing.
Of course, I should have known that this was going to be…
oracknows | November 27, 2012Antivaccinationists just love the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting (VAERS) database. As in love it to death. As in "can't get enough of it." The reason, of course, is that VAERS is a lot like an unmoderated discussion forum or, at best, a minimally moderated forum. Anyone can say anything they like. The reason is that it is a database to which anyone can add an entry, and there is only minimal effort to determine whether a given purported adverse reaction to vaccines being entered is actually the least bit likely to be even related to vaccines. Indeed, it took a man claiming that his child was…