Category: Public Health
NewsGuard identifies social media “super-spreaders” of COVID-19 misinformation
NewsGuard has identified "super-spreaders" of COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook and Twitter, including Dr. Joseph Mercola, the NVIC, Rush Limbaugh, and Ty Bollinger.
COVID-19 Testing
Currently available tests for COVID-19 are imperfect but useful if used properly, with rapidly evolving research on new tests underway.
Do Masks Work?
Let's review the evidence for the effectiveness of wearing face masks during a pandemic (reprinted from NeuroLogica).
Plandemic: Judy Mikovits and the mother of all COVID-19 conspiracy theories (some final thoughts)
Last Friday, I deconstructed Plandemic, a misinformation conspiracyfest of a video that went viral last week. It turns out that Judy Mikovits, the disgraced scientist featured in the video has even more conspiracy theories and misinformation up her sleeve.
Plandemic: Judy Mikovits and the mother of all COVID-19 conspiracy theories
Judy Mikovits is a disgraced scientist who published a paper claiming that a retrovirus called XMRV causes chronic fatigue syndrome, results that other investigators were unable to replicate. Since then, she's been a regular on the antivaccine circuit, but now she's been reborn as a "Fire Fauci" COVID-19 conspiracy theorist. Sadly, it worked. Her book is #1 on Amazon.
Chinese government recommends bear bile for COVID-19
The Chinese Government is relentlessly promoting TCM for COVID-19, including a remedy containing bear bile, which is cruelly extracted from the gall bladders of living wild or "farmed" bears.
COVID-19: Out-of-control science and bypassing science-based medicine
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there hasn't just been a pandemic of coronavirus-caused disease. There's also a pandemic of misinformation and bad science. It turns out that doctors today are just as prone as doctors 100 years ago during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic to bypass science-based medicine in their desperation to treat patients.
No – COVID-19 Is Not Just a “Bad Flu”
By any measure, COVID-19 is more than just a bad flu season, which is pretty bad to begin with.
COVID-19 pandemic deniers and the antivaccine movement: An unholy alliance
Deniers of the severity of COVID-19 as a disease and pandemic have increasingly teamed up with the antivaccine movement, emulating their rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and tactics. The effect on public health is likely to be disastrous.
More drug shortages due to COVID-19
COVID-19 is worsening a long-standing problem: Drug shortages