Category: Vaccines
COVID-19 has exposed the toothlessness of state medical boards
A report in The Washington Post last week revealed just how badly state medical boards have been failing when dealing with physicians spreading COVID-19 misinformation and using quackery to prevent and treat the disease. None of this is anything new, unfortunately. The pandemic has merely stress tested state medical boards, and most have failed because of political choices made long ago.
The Grand Debunk of the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down” (part 3/10)
The third installment in debunking the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down”: Chapter 3, “Deficient by Design: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)”.
“Base Spike Detox” and Signature Spike Support Formulas: Nattokinase quackery to treat COVID-19 and COVID-19 “vaccine injury”
Dr. Peter McCullough and a number of "anti-COVID-19 vaccine" antivaxxers out there has pivoted to quackery to "detox" from the supposedly malign effects of COVID-19 vaccines. Everything old is new again, this time with nattokinase.
RFK Jr.: A fart-filled argument gives way to an antisemitic conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is an “ethnically targeted” bioweapon
Last week, RFK Jr. endured hilariously bad press about an NYC press event at which two of his supporters argued over climate change, one with lots of farts. However, the fart jokes soon gave way to darker side of the event, a Q&A in which RFK Jr. shared an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that COVID-19 might have been "targeted" against Caucasians and...
The Grand Debunk of the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down” (part 2/10)
The second installment in debunking the antivaxxer book "Turtles All the Way Down": Chapter 2, supposedly concerned with “The Science of Adverse Events”.
The Grand Debunk of the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down” (part 1/10)
This book — written by "Anonymous", edited by Children's Health Defense lawyer Mary Holland and Children's Health Defense Publisher Liaison and Thinking Moms’ Revolution co-founder Zoey O’Toole, and published by "The Turtles Team" — purports to use only mainstream references to prove its points. But the book employs all the standard tropes in a master class of science denial and antivax tactics...
RFK Jr. resurrects an old antivax half-truth about “saline placebos” in randomized controlled trials of vaccines
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has resurrected the antivax claim that the childhood vaccine schedule has never been tested in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with a saline placebo controls (and therefore the vaccine schedule is unsafe). This is an old and deceptive antivax half-truth that ignores both what constitutes a scientifically valid placebo and the ethical requirements for RCTs.
RFK Jr. and Joe Rogan: Putting the old denialist technique of bad faith “Debate me, bro!” challenges on steroids
Joe Rogan conveyed a challenge by antivax crank turned Presidential candidate RFK Jr. to vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez to "debate me, bro!" In the week since, wealthy right wingers have added money to the inducement, and through an awful op-ed by Ross Douthat this weekend, even the New York Times has amped up the pressure for a "debate" about vaccines with...
When an antivax physician “dies suddenly”: The case of Dr. Rashid Buttar
Last month, Dr. Rashid Buttar, a prominent antivax "integrative medicine" practitioner, died suddenly. Because he hadn't been vaccinated, antivaxxers struggled mightily to reconcile his death with their conspiracy theory about COVID-19 vaccines killing thousands "suddenly." It turns out, however, that that Dr. Buttar had not been a well man since 2016 and was as much a victim of quackery as his patients...
Courage
If I were King of the Vaccines. Some thoughts on influenza vaccine, hospitalization, death and courage.