Yogi Berra

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.

/ August 8, 2022

Science Based Satire: We Need Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials of SARS-CoV-2

Before we make any more decisions regarding SARS-CoV-2, we urgently need to conduct large, long-term RCTs of it. I am astonished this is controversial in the medical community.

/ August 6, 2022

More False Hope for People with Tourette Syndrome

After a few years off, this is the third and final installment in a long-running series of posts tackling the claims made by proponents of an oral appliance for the treatment of Tourette Syndrome.

/ August 5, 2022

Polio’s Resurgence

Surely we can keep iron lungs relegated to museums, can't we?

/ August 4, 2022

The Return of Polio

Once again we lose the chance to eradicate polio, but the goal still remains relatively close.

/ August 3, 2022

Announcing a New Children’s Book that Promotes Critical Thinking

A new book teaches young children about critical thinking and evidence. It's not only educational but colorful and funny. Too many adults are like Henry, the little boy in the story who rejects clear evidence and persists in what he wants to believe.

/ August 2, 2022

The rise and fall of the lab leak hypothesis for the origin of SARS-CoV-2

Two new studies were published last week that strongly support a natural zoonotic origin for COVID-19 centered at the wet market in Wuhan, China. Naturally, lab leak proponents soberly considered this new evidence and thought about changing their minds. Just kidding! They doubled down on the conspiracy mongering, because of course they did.

/ August 1, 2022

Debating How to Debate Instead of Actually Debating

Every moment spent debating who can say what to whom and how and where they should say it, is time not spent talking about doctors who repeatedly underestimated the virus and successfully campaigned to ensure tens of millions of children and young adults contracted it before they were vaccinated.

/ July 30, 2022

“Natural Immunity” Stans Forget Babies Will Always be Vulnerable to COVID

Children are still getting hospitalized with COVID, no matter how many times contrarian doctors mindlessly repeat the mantra "natural immunity". Doctors who know where babies come from understand why this might be.

/ July 29, 2022