Tag: antivaccine
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.
“Holistic cardiologist” Dr. Joel Kahn is amplifying misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines and VAERS
Dr. Joel Kahn is a "holistic cardiologist." There was a time when he seemed to me at least semi-reasonable, but recently he has been peddling COVID-19 conspiracy theories and antivaccine misinformation, particularly misrepresentation of reports to the VAERS database, which makes this a good time for an update about how antivaxxers are weaponizing VAERS for propaganda purposes.
COVID-19 and balancing the risks: The vaccine or the virus
Given recent reports of myocarditis after vaccination with mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in young people, we think it's a good time to reexamine the risk/benefit ratio of these vaccines in this population.
“Depopulation” by COVID-19 vaccines?
COVID-19 and antivaccine conspiracy theorists like Joe Mercola, Michael Yeadon, and Peter McCullough are spreading the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 vaccines are intended as a tool for "global depopulation". This is nothing more than an old antivaccine conspiracy theory repurposed for the pandemic. As ridiculous as it might seem, it is nonetheless very appealing to antivaxxers.
“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 “deadly” coronavirus spike protein (according to antivaxxers)
Antivaxxers are citing three papers to support their claim that spike protein produced by COVID-19 vaccines is dangerous. Unsurprisingly and as usual, they're misinterpreting the studies and misrepresenting their significance. COVID-19 vaccines are, in fact, very safe.
The COVID-19 “Vaccine Holocaust”: The latest antivaccine messaging
The latest antivaccine disinformation consists of pointing to the large numbers of reports of death (and other adverse events) to the VAERS database. It's nonsense.
To unblind or not to unblind? That is the question about clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines
Antivaccine alternative health tycoon Joe Mercola claims that the unblinding of participants in the clinical trials of Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines was intended to "blow up the trials" and undermine the science, making it impossible ever to identify long term adverse events. What he's really doing is deceptively oversimplifying complex ethical and scientific issues surrounding these trials in the middle of...
Christian Elliot’s “18 Reasons I Won’t Be Getting a Covid Vaccine”: Viral antivaccine misinformation
Christian Elliot is a self-proclaimed "natural health nerd" and entrepreneur who recently published 18 reasons why he wouldn't take the COVID-19 vaccine. Unfortunately, it's viral disinformation based on conspiracy theories, bad science, pseudoscience, and nonsense.
Countering Geert Vanden Bossche’s dubious viral open letter warning against mass COVID-19 vaccination
Geert Vanden Bossche is a scientist who published an open letter warning of global catastrophe due to deadly variants of COVID-19 selected for by mass vaccination. His argument sounds a lot like an argument Andrew Wakefield once made for MMR. There’s even grift likely involved!