Category: Vaccines

Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 5: VAERS and a useful idiot at the FDA

In the sadly continuing story of how Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. is working to eliminate vaccines, we look at a useful idiot, Dr. Vinay Prasad, and how he is weaponizing dead children to justify making vaccines harder to approve.

/ December 1, 2025
CDC Headquarters

The CDC is lying to you about vaccines and autism

The CDC webpage about vaccines and autism now misrepresents the science and lies to the public about vaccines and autism. It's just part of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s continuing war on vaccines.

/ November 24, 2025
MAHA has fallen

“MAHA has fallen”? Antivaxxers are getting very impatient with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Recently, antivaxxers have been expressing their impatience with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s progress eliminating vaccines. It was inevitable. Has MAHA fallen?

/ November 17, 2025
McCullough Foundation nonsense

Antivaxxer Steve Kirsch unknowingly identifies the fatal flaw of an antivax “report” from the McCullough Foundation

Hilariously and without realizing it, antivaxxer Steve Kirsch nailed the essence of why a recent antivax "report" by the McCullough Foundation is nonsense. It's basically a very old tactic for misrepresenting science repackaged for "new school" antivaxxers.

/ November 10, 2025

COVID-19 infection during pregnancy is associated with higher rates of autism and neurodevelopmental diagnoses

A recent study found that infection with SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of autism and neurodevelopment disorders. This is yet another reason why vaccination during pregnancy is important.

/ November 3, 2025
Two panels show how PD-L1 on tumor cells binds to PD-1 on T cells to block immune response, and how anti-PD-L1 or anti-PD-1 drugs block this interaction, allowing T cells to kill tumor cells.

The opposite of “turbo cancer”: COVID-19 vaccines sensitize cancer to immunotherapy

A new preliminary study published in Nature suggests that COVID-19 vaccines might actually boost the immune system to make immunotherapy more effective. If confirmed in followup studies, this result suggests that the vaccines do the opposite of causing "turbo cancer."

/ October 27, 2025
A gloved hand holds a vial labeled "COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine" next to a filled syringe, ready for injection. The background is blurred and light-colored.

The Effectiveness of COVID Vaccines

One of the common themes of SBM is that medical evidence can be very complex. In order to come to any robust conclusion about what the science says on any question you need to do a careful and thorough evaluation of all the relevant evidence, including plausibility as well as observational and experimental clinical evidence. Essentially we want to look at the...

/ October 22, 2025
Aluminum hydroxide

RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 4: Aluminum edition (or: Everything old is new again…again)

Last week, news stories reported that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had convened an "aluminum working group." Among the "scientists" there are antivax scientists about whom I've been writing for over a decade. Everything old antivax is new again.

/ October 13, 2025
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lying about vaccines again

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. weaponizes an old antivax trope in his quest to eliminate vaccines

People who keep whistling past the graveyard (of vaccines) to assure themselves that RFK Jr,. won't take away their vaccines are deluding themselves. One seven-minute video he posted last week shows that, weaponizing an old one deceptive antivax trope claiming that vaccines didn't do that much to improve global health.

/ October 6, 2025
Mark Blaxill

Mark Blaxill: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resurrects another washed-up antivax activist

Last week, it was reported that Mark Blaxill had been hired at CDC. It looks like RFK Jr.'s resurrecting every washed up antivax crony he can find to staff HHS.

/ September 30, 2025