Retracted papers about COVID-19 are more highly cited than they should be
Earlier this month a study showed that papers about COVID-19 that are retracted tend to be cited far more than average and continue to be heavily cited after retraction. Clearly, scientific publishing and the scientific community need to do better.
ProtocolKills.com: Repackaging an old narrative about conventional medicine versus alternative medicine for COVID-19
Quacks claim that medicine, not the disease, kills, with their nostrums as the cure. ProtocolKills.com shows that victims and their families are often their best spokespeople because they are so sympathetic and questioning their testimonials is easily portrayed as attacking very sympathetic victims. Cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski used to do this, weaponizing his patients against any critics and using them as foot...
Why antivaxxers reject the concept of scientific consensus as a “manufactured construct”
Neil deGrasse Tyson invoked the concept of a scientific consensus while supporting vaccines in his debate with Del Bigtree. Why was his statement about how "individual scientists don't matter" compared to scientific consensus so triggering to antivaxxers? Why do antivaxxers reject the very concept of a scientific consensus and promote a hyper-individualistic view of how science should be conducted?
Neil deGrasse Tyson makes the unforced error of “debating” antivax propagandist Del Bigtree on The Highwire
Last week, astrophysicist and famed science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared on The Highwire, an antivax video podcast, to "debate" its host, antivax propagandist Del Bigtree. This incident demonstrates quite well why it is almost never a good idea for a scientist to agree to "debate" science deniers.
Peter Gøtzsche teams with an antivaxxer to exaggerate the harms of COVID-19 vaccines
Peter Gøtzsche, formerly leader of the Nordic Cochrane Center, has teamed with Maryanne Demasi to write a systematic review of the "harms" of COVID-19 vaccination. Besides accepting the highly dubious methodology behind one study, their preprint is yet another example of how EBM can be corrupted to promote antivax ideas.
Autism prevalence increases to 1 in 38, and antivaxxers blame vaccines without using the word “vaccine”
The CDC updated its estimates for the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders. Predictably, antivaxxers blame the increasing prevalence of ASDs reported, particularly in Black children, on "environmental factors," which is antivax code for, "Vaccines are to blame."
Ivermectin is now fast becoming the new MMS
A recent VICE story described a Telegram channel devoted to promoting veterinary ivermectin to treat autism. It has echoes of autism quackery going back at least to the use of MMS (a kind of bleach) to "cure" autism by eliminating "parasites."
The Cochrane mask fiasco: How the evidence-based medicine paradigm can produce misleading results
Last week, the Cochrane Collaborative was forced to walk back the conclusions of a review by Tom Jefferson et al that had been spun in the media as proving that "masks don't work." Tom Jefferson himself has been problematic about vaccines for a long time, but the rot goes deeper. What is it about the evidence-based medicine paradigm that results in misleading...
Ivermectin booster Dr. Tess Lawrie goes all-in for homeopathy for COVID and long COVID
Tess Lawrie has been promoting ivermectin for COVID-19 for two and a half years. Of late, she has becoming more of a general multipurpose quack, promoting ivermectin to treat cancer. Now she's promoting homeopathy for COVID and long COVID while a Research Fellow at St. Mary's University Twickenham. What does this tell us about medicine?
Andrew Wakefield after 25 years: Paving the way for COVID-19 quacks and antivaxxers
It was 25 years ago yesterday that Andrew Wakefield launched the modern iteration of the antivaccine movement.In doing so, he laid down a template that antivax quacks today still follow.