Category: Public Health
The Suicide Holiday Myth, Now with COVID
There is no association between the holidays and suicide – that is a myth. The effect of the pandemic is less clear.
There is no COVID-19 “casedemic.” The pandemic is real and deadly.
Antivaccine activists and pandemic minimizers Del Bigtree and Joe Mercola are promoting the myth of the "casedemic" that claims that the massive increase in COVID-19 cases being reported is an artifact of increased PCR testing and false positives due to too sensitive a threshold to the test. As they have done for vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases many times before, they are vastly...
JAMA promotes the false equivalence of ‘focused protection’
On November 11 JAMA hosted a podcast with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. The discussion included factual inaccuracies and created a false equivalence between the fringe idea of 'focused protection' versus ongoing public health efforts to restrain community spread.
Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. Now what for science-based medicine?
In 2016 and 2020, scientists expressed surprise and alarm at the results of the Presidential election. In 2016 it was alarm that someone as antiscience as Donald Trump was elected, and in 2020 it was over how close the election was, given Trump's dismal record on science, medicine, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Are scientists out of touch? And now what, for federal...
Superspreading Events
Superspreader events seem to play a large role in spreading COVID-19, which gives us a powerful method of reducing spread.
The Top COVID-19 Hucksters and Grifters…so far
It wouldn't be a health crisis without those that want to profit from it.
COVID Fatality Improving
COVID-19 is becoming less deadly, due to a variety of reasons that do not seem to include changes to the virus itself.
Vaccine safety monitoring in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic
Last year, the Trump administration essentially disbanded the National Vaccine Program Office, folding it into an office focused on infectious diseases. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. What does this mean for monitoring the safety of the soon-to-be-approved COVID-19 vaccines?
Government watchdog to investigate politicization of CDC and FDA during COVID-19 pandemic
Based on numerous reports of White House interference, a government watchdog will investigate politicization of the CDC's and FDA's actions during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Great Barrington Declaration: COVID-19 deniers follow the path laid down by creationists, HIV/AIDS denialists, and climate science deniers
Apparently signed by thousands of scientists, the Great Barrington Declaration argues that lockdowns in response to the coronavirus pandemic do more harm than good and that society should use "Focused Protection" for the elderly and those at high risk for severe disease and death from COVID-19 while letting the young go about their business normally. A closer look reveals that COVID-19 deniers...