Category: Public Health
Sweetened Drinks and Risk of A-Fib
Yet again the public is being subjected to warnings about the potential health risks of consuming a common food item based upon insufficient evidence. Last month it was oat products, and now it’s sweetened drinks. The study is a prospective cohort study, which means it is observational. The researchers looked at over 200 thousand participants in the UK biobank. At the start...
Pesticide in Oat Products – Should You Worry?
You know the rule about headlines - if there is a question in a headline the answer is almost always "no". This article is no exception.
Yet more evidence that we physicians need to clean up our act
A recent study found that physicians and scientists who are perceived as "experts" are prevalent within the antivax community and more influential because of their status as physicians and scientists. Why do physicians continue to tolerate antivax quacks within our ranks?
2023: The year that the evidence-based medicine (EBM) paradigm was weaponized against vaccines and public health
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been a very useful paradigm for assessing evidence in medicine. However, like any other framework, it can be misused, particularly when fundamentalist EBM methodolatry leads to its inappropriate application to questions for which it is ill-suited, a misuse that has been weaponized against public health during the pandemic.
Misinformation is pervasive, and AI will turbocharge it
Is it possible to refute an infinite amount of AI-generated health misinformation?
Steve Kirsch’s “mother of all revelations” about the “deadliness” of COVID-19 vaccines goes poof
On Thursday, Steve Kirsch gave his long-hyped talk about "record-level data" from New Zealand that supposedly demonstrates that COVID-19 vaccines have killed more than 10 million people worldwide. His "analysis" of illegally obtained data from a "whistleblower" was so ridden with false assumptions and rookie errors that even some antivaxxers couldn't accept it.
The Great Barrington Declaration and “natural herd immunity” versus public health three years later
Over the weekend, Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the Brownstone Institute, crowed about how the Great Barrington Declaration and its recommendation of a "natural herd immunity" approach to the pandemic changed everything three years ago. Unfortunately, as the John Snow Project pointed out last week, the "natural herd immunity" approach has done what could be irreparable damage to public health science and, more...
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comes home to his antivax roots…again
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote speech at the second annual meeting of his antivax organization, Children's Health Defense. Once again, he demonstrated that not only is he still antivax as hell, but that his proposals are even more bizarre than before. Truly, it was a homecoming for him.
Fluoride and IQ
The evidence continues to support that low levels of fluoride in drinking water are safe.
COVID-19 Vaccination and Factors Contributing to Vaccine Refusal
An examination of COVID-19 vaccine refusal in Hong Kong suggests that fostering trust in health authorities, boosting confidence in vaccines, and combating misinformation are all necessary as we prepare for the next pandemic.