Tag: antivaccine movement
Joe Mercola: An antivaccine quack tycoon pivots effortlessly to profit from spreading COVID-19 misinformation
Joe Mercola is a physician whose nearly quarter-century of promoting quackery and antivaccine misinformation has garnered him a net worth north of $100 million. It is therefore not surprising that in the age of the pandemic, he has pivoted to fatten his bottom line promoting misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and the COVID vaccines.
“COVID-19 vaccines are going to sterilize our womenfolk,” Take 2
Antivaxxers have long claimed that vaccines, particularly HPV vaccines, can damage the ovaries and cause female infertility. That claim has been resurrected for COVID-19 vaccines. The first example relied on a dubious "similarity" between the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and a placental protein. This time, it's the lipid nanoparticles attacking the ovaries, echoing very old claims about polysorbate-80. Truly, everything old is new...
The Causes of Vaccine Hesitancy
The vaccine hesitant are now the front lines of the battle to contain COVID.
COVID vaccine manufacturers should explore legal action against anti-vaxxers spreading disinformation
Perhaps it's time for vaccine manufacturers to consider defamation suits against anti-vaxxers who spread false information about COVID vaccines. Lawsuits by voting technology companies against Fox and others over false "rigged" election claims could serve as a template.
The “Disinformation Dozen” spreading anti-vaccine messaging on social media
Just twelve individuals are generating two-thirds of all of the anti-vaccine messaging on Twitter and Facebook.
A Race Against Vaccine Hesitancy
The vaccine program is in a race against the emergence of new strains of the virus. Vaccine hesitancy may be the margin of victory or failure.
All science denial is a form of conspiracy theory
Regular readers of this blog know that many forms of quackery and science denial have conspiracy theories associated with them, but a further examination suggests that all forms of science denial are a form of conspiracy theory. In the middle of a deadly pandemic, science denial represents a form of conspiracy theory with potentially deadly consequences.
Antivaxxers launch a preemptive disinformation war against a COVID-19 vaccine that doesn’t yet exist
We don't yet have a vaccine against COVID-19, but that hasn't stopped the antivaccine movement from launching a preemptive disinformation war on social media against it. Unfortunately, as a recent study demonstrates, on Facebook at least, they have been so successful that it is possible that antivaccine messaging will surpass pro-vaccine messaging on FB within a decade.
MMR is Safe and Effective
A new systematic review shows convincingly that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective.
The Psychology of Vaccine Denial
A new study sheds a bit more light on anti-vaccine attitudes.