243 - Ask Your Doctor if Arthritic Goat's Milk Is Right for You

American Freethought Podcast

Original release February 17, 2016.

Encore release December 8, 2018.

Encore release August 31, 2017.

Comedian and television talk show host Bill Maher gave "Dr." Sam Chachoua nearly ten minutes on a recent show to talk about his quack cure for AIDS that involves the milk from arthritic goats. "Dr. Sam" supposedly cured Charlie Sheen during a retreat in Mexico, and he claims to have eradicated AIDS/HIV completely from the island nation Comoros. None of which is true. Check out Dr. Harriet Hall's analysis at Skeptic.com.

But this isn't the first time Maher has danced on the edge of madness. He told David Letterman that Western food and prescription medicine are killing Americans (some part of which is true, but not quite in the way Maher implies). On Larry King Live, he said that flu shots cause Alzheimer's. His opinions on vaccines are so disconnected from reality that conservative Republican Bill Frist (a medical doctor) tried without success to talk him off that ledge. Maher got a lot of blowback from the Frist interview, but a couple of weeks later, he doubled down, repeating quackish talking points, speculating that childhood vaccines and mercury in dental fillings caused allergies.

Plus:

Holey Scripture is back! Do animals go to Heaven?

Richard Dawkins is recovering from a minor stroke. Prognosis is good, and we wish him the best.

Finally, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is dead, and his corpse had hardly cooled before Republican leadership and presidential candidates are shouting that the sitting President should not nominate a replacement--despite the fact that he still has nearly a year in office!