Category: Vaccines
TB Or Not TB? Don’t Rely on a Blood Test
TB can't be diagnosed with a blood test.
Conspiracy theories about monkeypox: Déjà vu all over again or same as it ever was?
Last Thursday, the Biden administration officially declared monkeypox to be a national public health emergency. Unsurprisingly, conspiracy theories abound, many of them recycled from COVID-19 and older antivax conspiracy theories.
Polio’s Resurgence
Surely we can keep iron lungs relegated to museums, can't we?
The Return of Polio
Once again we lose the chance to eradicate polio, but the goal still remains relatively close.
Novavax: It’s the vaccine that scares antivaxxers, not moth DNA or any ingredient in any vaccine
The Novavax COVID-19 vaccine was recently granted emergency use approval by the FDA. Company executives and some public health officials have expressed hope that this recombinant protein-based vaccine will be more palatable to the vaccine-hesitant than existing vaccines using new (and therefore scarier) mRNA and adenovirus platforms. The reaction to the use of moth cells to produce the Novavax vaccine shows that...
Is COVID-19 “the forever plague”?
A recent article claims that Omicron reinfections confer "no immunity" such that it's possible to be reinfected with Omicron variants every two to three weeks and calls COVID-19 the "forever plague". Although it makes a reasonable point that "natural" postinfection immunity doesn't last long because of variants, the article is undermines its reasonable criticisms of COVID policy with maximal fear mongering.
Possible Universal Coronavirus Vaccine
New research potentially points the way to a universal coronavirus vaccine and other applications.
Statistical Shenanigans?
The manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines say they are 95% effective. Peter Doshi re-examined the evidence and estimates they are only 19-29% effective. This pre-print of an as-yet unpublished re-analysis raises many questions but doesn't support the claims being made on antivaccine sites.
Apples, Oranges, and How Not to Analyze a Vaccine RCT
The evidence is overwhelming that COVID vaccines keep people alive and out of the hospital. Only someone who starts with the conclusion that vaccines don't work and then works backwards to find the evidence could claim otherwise.
Moral outrage is not a good guide to pandemic policy reform. Vinay Prasad, please take note.
Vinay Prasad identifies some dubious problems in the government's efforts to protect public health, and offers some questionable solutions.