Results for: vaccines
Overhyping Vaccines Wasn’t Pro-Vaccine. It Was Pro-Stop-Worrying-About-COVID.
Overselling the vaccine in 2021 was not being pro-vaccine. It was pro-stop-worrying-about-the pandemic, from the doctors who assured us herd immunity was imminent.
Self-Amplifying RNA Vaccines
Self-Amplifying RNA vaccines are coming. Here's a primer to get you ready.
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.
Three New Studies Show the COVID Vaccines Are Very Safe for Children
Three new studies tell us what we already knew- vaccine isn't perfect, but it's far safer than the virus for children.
It Was Misinformation When I Said Vaccines Are 100% Effective at Preventing Bad Outcomes & Will End the Pandemic
In 2019, Drs. John Mandrola, Adam Cifu, Vinay Prasad, and Andrew Foy wrote an article titled The Case for Being a Medical Conservative. They wrote that the “choice of the term ‘medical conservative’ does not imply a political philosophy.” Instead, they recognized “that many developments promoted as medical advances offer, at best, marginal benefits”. The crux of their article was that: The medical...
Peter Gøtzsche teams with an antivaxxer to exaggerate the harms of COVID-19 vaccines
Peter Gøtzsche, formerly leader of the Nordic Cochrane Center, has teamed with Maryanne Demasi to write a systematic review of the "harms" of COVID-19 vaccination. Besides accepting the highly dubious methodology behind one study, their preprint is yet another example of how EBM can be corrupted to promote antivax ideas.
Autism prevalence increases to 1 in 38, and antivaxxers blame vaccines without using the word “vaccine”
The CDC updated its estimates for the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders. Predictably, antivaxxers blame the increasing prevalence of ASDs reported, particularly in Black children, on "environmental factors," which is antivax code for, "Vaccines are to blame."
Vaccines and infant mortality rates: A false relationship promoted by the antivaxxers…again, 12 years later
Since COVID-19, in the antivax world everything old is new again. Even hoary chestnuts of bad science used 12 years ago to falsely claim that vaccines kill babies. That's right, Gary S. Goldman and Neil Z. Miller are back to defend their 2011 "study," and RFK Jr. is flogging it as slam-dunk "evidence" that vaccines kill babies.
How antivaxxers laid the groundwork to blame COVID-19 vaccines for Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest
Right after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed from a cardiac arrest after a tackle and was resuscitated on the field, antivaxxers immediately pounced, blaming COVID-19 vaccines even as CPR was still continuing. That's because antivaxxers had "primed the pump" over more than a year with stories of young athletes who had supposedly "died suddenly." (Warning: This one's long, even by Gorski...
Do COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer”?
Over the last several months, antivaxxers have been claiming that COVID-19 vaccines cause "turbo cancer", cancers (or cancer recurrences) of a particularly aggressive and fast-growing variety diagnosed in younger and younger patients. "Turbo cancer" is not a thing, and the evidence cited is as weak as any antivax "evidence", including anecdotes and misinterpretation of epidemiology.