The 2011 Pigasus Awards, and then some

The James Randi Educational Foundation announced them on a completely appropriate Friday, and it's not exactly surprising that at least one of the recipients is also a Cretin of the Moment:

Dr. (Mehmet) Oz is a Harvard-educated cardiac physician who, through his syndicated TV show, has promoted faith healing, "energy medicine," and other quack theories that have no scientific basis. Oz has appeared on ABC News to give legitimacy to the claims of Brazilian faith healer “John of God,” who uses old carnival tricks to take money from the seriously ill. He's hosted Ayurvedic guru Yogi Cameron on his show to promote nonsense "tongue examination" as a way of diagnosing health problems. This year, he really went off the deep end. In March 2011, Dr. Oz endorsed "psychic" huckster and past Pigasus winner John Edward, who pretends to talk to dead people. Oz even suggested that bereaved families should visit psychic mediums to receive (faked) messages from their dead relatives as a form of grief counseling.

My, oh my. The crap that television producers try to pass off as medical fact these days.

But wait! Dr. Oz has a comrade in his questionable endeavors, and she works an arguably more high-profile gig at CBS:

After all of (Sharyl) Attkisson's pandering to the anti-vaccine movement and promoting its message, one huge question remains. Why does CBS News tolerate Attkisson's horrible reporting on vaccines and other scientific issues? I can't speak about her other reporting, but when it comes to science, Sharyl Attkisson is a crank par excellence. She has an agenda; and she tortures the evidence to make it seem to agree with her biases. I also wonder how long it will be before Attkisson joins Dan Olmsted as a writer for AoA (Age of Autism). My only surprise is that, nearly four years since I first noticed her, she hasn't made that move already. I suppose I can always hope that CBS News wises up to the anti-vaccine propagandist working as one of its correspondents and forces Attkisson finally to make that move.

People who wonder why I find it less and less useful to watch large amounts of TV with each passing year should look no further.  You don't have to watch intentionally disposable crap like Jersey Shore or Dancing with Myself (er..Dancing with the Stars, sorry) to find readily accessible mind rot. Not with "medical" or "scientific" reporting like this, you don't.