Results for: measles

Deception by omission: Del Bigtree’s ICAN calls the studies licensing MMR into question

Del Bigtree's antivaccine group Informed Consent Action Network issued a press release questioning the data used to license the MMR vaccine, with Bigtree claiming on a recent episode of his vlog Highwire that it causes significant GI issues that the FDA "covered up." As usual, Bigtree is deceiving by omission.

/ May 6, 2019

Randomized controlled trial of homeopathic nosodes finds, not surprisingly, that they are useless

Magic sugar pills go head-to-head against actual vaccines in a randomized controlled trial. The results will not surprise you.

/ April 4, 2019

Médecins Sans Medicine? “Homeopaths without borders” giving sugar pills for infectious diseases in Honduras

Canadian homeopaths are in Honduras, and claim their magic water remedies can prevent diseases such as Chagas, dengue, and chikungunya.

/ March 7, 2019
Amazon Prime

Combatting dangerous quackery and antivaccine misinformation on streaming services and social media

Last week, Amazon began removing antivaccine videos from Amazon Prime. Last month, YouTube announced that it was demonetizing antivaccine videos, and Facebook stated that it would be taking action to de-emphasize antivaccine pages in its searched. These are all good first tentative steps, but the problem of quackery on streaming platforms and social media goes way beyond just antivaccine content. Making it...

/ March 4, 2019
Peter Gøtzsche

Peter Gøtzsche and antivaxers: Should a science advocate ever speak at an antivaccine conference?

Last week, I wrote about how evidence-based medicine icon Peter Gøtzsche was slated to speak at an antivaccine conference. This week, I now know why he agreed to appear. In part, he thought he could change antivaxer minds. This leads me to ask: Is it ever a good idea for a science advocate to speak at a pseudoscience conference?

/ February 25, 2019
PIC 2019

The strange saga of Peter Gøtzsche and Physicians for Informed Consent

Recently, it was noted that Peter Gøtzsche, formerly of Cochrane Nordic, was featured on the speaker list for an antivaccine quackfest organized by the antivaccine group Physicians for Informed Consent, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Toni Bark, and Marry Holland. Two days later, he announced that he would not be speaking there. So what happened? And what is Physicians for Informed...

/ February 18, 2019

The Myth of Vaccine Shedding

No - the measles vaccine cannot cause an outbreak through virus shedding, but this myth persists in antivaccine circles.

/ February 13, 2019

Antivaccine pseudoscience disguised as autism advocacy in the Minnesota legislature

Recently, Sen. Jim Abeler of Minnesota created the MN Autism Council, an advisory panel tasked with advising the legislature on autism policy. A closer look at the story reveals that Sen. Abeler is a chiropractor, two of the members are antivaxers, and one of them was a founding member tasked with forming the council. This is how antivaccine activism is disguised as...

/ January 28, 2019

WHO – Vaccine Hesitancy Top Health Threat

The World Health Organization recognizes that vaccine-hesitancy is a top threat to the public health. Now what are they going to do about it?

/ January 23, 2019

Italy’s Antivaccine Government – The Attack on Experts Continues

Anti-vaccine Italian government fires its entire Health Council. This is unfortunately part of a bigger trend against expertise and reality-based policy.

/ December 5, 2018