Category: Internet & social media
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."
Science denial, overconfidence, and persuasion
The pandemic has brought scientists who have rejected science with respect to COVID-19 public health measures a disturbing level of influence. Recent research suggests reasons why and who among the public susceptible to such misinformation remains persuadable.
The ABIM vs. medical misinformation: Better late than never?
Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial by the President of ABIM discussing how the board certification can be taken away from diplomates who spread medical misinformation. Is this too little, too late?
Vaccines Don’t Save Lives
Fostering basic critical thinking skills and countering medical misinformation is a vital undertaking.
“Coronaphobia”: How antivaxxers and pandemic minimizers pathologize fear of disease
Over the weekend, Dr. Lucy McBride, a concierge medicine doctor who has become famous as a pandemic minimizer and one of the drivers of "Urgency of Normal", Tweeted an article that she had written over a year ago about "coronaphobia". Whether she understands it or not, this is a very old antivax trope: To pathologize fear of infectious disease as mental illness.
Columbia University finally cuts ties with America’s Quack Dr. Oz
Decades after Dr. Oz pioneered "integrating" quackery into medicine and after many years of promoting diet scams and quackery on a nationally syndicated daily television show, Columbia University appears finally to have had enough and has quietly downgraded his status. What took so long?
Ivermectin: The acupuncture of COVID-19 treatments
As high-quality evidence increasingly and resoundingly shows that ivermectin does not work against COVID-19, advocates are doing what acupuncture advocates do: Turning to lower quality "positive" studies to claim incorrectly that their favorite ineffective treatment actually does "work".
They Have Names
Reality is not "fear-based messaging", and fewer children will die moving forward if their parents know a bit more about what the virus can do and how the vaccine can keep children safe.
FTC targets physicians’ COVID claims with cease-and-desist letters
The FTC recently announced it had issued 20 more cease-and-desist demands to physicians and others claiming their products and services prevent or treat COVID-19 without sufficient scientific backing. Unfortunately, this has not stopped many of the targets from making other bogus health claims.
Mercola and Kennedy sue Sen. Elizabeth Warren for combating their COVID misinformation
Quack tycoon Joseph Mercola and anti-vaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren claiming she violated their First Amendment rights when she complained that Amazon was peddling COVID misinformation, citing Mercola’s recent misinformation-filled book on COVID as an example.