Results for: "Peter Doshi"
The “12% efficacy” myth from the “Pfizer data dump”: The latest slasher stat about COVID-19 vaccines
Last week, a claim that Pfizer's own documents demonstrate that the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine was only 12% (not the 95% reported) went viral. This is a slasher stat, so-named because it is not new and, like the killers in slasher movie series, even when it appears to be dead it always appears in another installment of the misinformation franchise to...
The “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration” promotes antivaccine misinformation
The signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration and its "spiritual child" the Brownstone Institute, swear up and down that they are not anttivaccine. If that's so, why are Brownstone-affiliated academics spreading antivaccine misinformation in Uganda?
What the heck happened to The BMJ?
Last week, The BMJ published an "exposé" by Paul Thacker alleging patient unblinding, data falsification, and other wrongdoing by a company running three sites for the massive clinical trial of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It was a highly biased story embraced by antivaxxers, with a deceptively framed narrative and claims not placed into proper context, leading me to look into the broader...
The COVID-19 “Vaccine Holocaust”: The latest antivaccine messaging
The latest antivaccine disinformation consists of pointing to the large numbers of reports of death (and other adverse events) to the VAERS database. It's nonsense.
Christian Elliot’s “18 Reasons I Won’t Be Getting a Covid Vaccine”: Viral antivaccine misinformation
Christian Elliot is a self-proclaimed "natural health nerd" and entrepreneur who recently published 18 reasons why he wouldn't take the COVID-19 vaccine. Unfortunately, it's viral disinformation based on conspiracy theories, bad science, pseudoscience, and nonsense.
The efforts of antivaxxers to portray COVID-19 vaccines as harmful or even deadly continue apace (VAERS edition)
With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines continuing apace, so are the efforts of antivaxxers to portray the vaccines as dangerous. This time around, they've resurrected the old antivaccine trick of deceptively misusing the VAERS database to imply causation from VAERS reports. That's not how VAERS works, however.
Are antivaxers “holding science hostage”?
Melinda Wenner Moyer published an article in The New York Times arguing that fear of how antivaxers will react to scientific findings is leading scientists to self-censor. I'm not convinced that this is the case.
Prove the scientific consensus and win a prize: A time-dishonored PR ploy used by cranks, quacks, and pseudoscientists (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. edition)
Last week, antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. teamed up with Robert De Niro to issue a challenge to provide one scientific study that proves thimerosal in vaccines is safe, with a cash prize of $100,000. They thus joined a long line of antivaxers, creationists, and climate science denialists offering money to "prove" the scientific consensus. Science doesn't work that way.
New evidence, same conclusion: Tamiflu only modestly useful for influenza
Does Tamiflu have any meaningful effects on the prevention or treatment of influenza? Considering the drug’s been on the market for almost 15 years, and is widely used, you should expect this question has been answered after 15 flu seasons. Answering this question from a science-based perspective requires three steps: Consider prior probability, be systematic in the approach, and get all the...
The Tamiflu Spin
I will start, for those of you who are new to the blog, with two disclaimers. First, I am an infectious disease doctor. It is a simple job: Me find bug. Me kill bug. Me go home. I spend all day taking care of patients with infections. My income comes from treating and preventing infections. So I must have some sort of...