Results for: COVID-19
“Subscription science”: Physician-influencers, social media, and conflicts of interest
Antivaccine activists and quacks often weaponize legitimate concerns about industry conflicts of interest in medicine into the "shill gambit," in which they accuse critics and defenders of science-based medicine of being in the pay of big pharma. However, the rise of physician-influencers and, in particular, Substack show that not all conflicts of interest are from industry or even financial.
WHO Declares COVID Emergency Over
While the COVID health emergency is over, COVID itself is not, and we need to have an eye on the next potential pandemic.
An Absurd Thought Experiment
How would you have reacted on 1/1/2020 if a doctor claimed that a virus that killed zero children was "truly dangerous" compared to one that kill 2,000?
ProtocolKills.com: Misinformed refusal on steroids
Back in the day, I used to refer to something I dubbed "misinformed refusal," a term that refers to how antivaxxers had weaponized "informed consent" by inverting it to frighten parents against vaccinated. In the age of the pandemic, ProtocolKills.com generalizes misinformed refusal to all COVID-19 treatments with the help of "hospital hostage negotiator" Laura Bartlett, who views COVID-19 treatments in hospitals...
Letter to a Medical Student: There Is No Elite RCT Strike Force
None of us have to fantasize what we would have done during a pandemic. What you actually did the past three years is exactly what you would have done.
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...
“We Want Them Infected” – My Book is Done!
Prior to the pandemic, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security ranked the U.S. as the first out of 195 countries on their pandemic preparedness. What went wrong?
Why antivaxxers reject the concept of scientific consensus as a “manufactured construct”
Neil deGrasse Tyson invoked the concept of a scientific consensus while supporting vaccines in his debate with Del Bigtree. Why was his statement about how "individual scientists don't matter" compared to scientific consensus so triggering to antivaxxers? Why do antivaxxers reject the very concept of a scientific consensus and promote a hyper-individualistic view of how science should be conducted?
A Phony Invitation for “Discussion and Debate”
Phony calls for "discussion and debate" about vaccinating children create the illusion that discussion and debate hasn't already occurred.
Neil deGrasse Tyson makes the unforced error of “debating” antivax propagandist Del Bigtree on The Highwire
Last week, astrophysicist and famed science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared on The Highwire, an antivax video podcast, to "debate" its host, antivax propagandist Del Bigtree. This incident demonstrates quite well why it is almost never a good idea for a scientist to agree to "debate" science deniers.