Tag: Bell’s palsy
A poorly framed article on COVID-19 vaccine injury in the New York Times
A poorly framed article on people who believe that COVID-19 vaccines injured them is being trumpeted by antivaxxers. Where the New York Times and its reporter Apoorva Mandavilli go wrong?
Justin Bieber, Ramsay Hunt syndrome, SADS, and how to antivaxxers everything is always about vaccines
I never thought I'd be writing about Justin Bieber, but such are the strange times we live in, given how after Bieber announced that he had developed facial paralysis as a result of Ramsay Hunt syndrome antivaxxers swooped in to blame it on COVID-19 vaccines. Elsewhere, they blame every unexplained death of a young person on vaccines to the point of claiming...
Syncope and Bell’s palsy: Distinguishing correlation from causation for adverse events observed after COVID-19 vaccination
The FDA has approved emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for two COVID-19 vaccines, and the largest mass vaccination program in history has begun. Look for antivaxxers to attribute reactions to the vaccine that the vaccine very likely didn't cause. We'll examine the example stories of vasovagal syncope and Bell's palsy that were reported by the press last week.
Separating Fact from Fiction in Pediatric Medicine: Facial Nerve Palsy
There are numerous medical conditions that are seemingly designed to allow proponents of “irregular medicine” to proclaim their treatments to be effective. These conditions tend to be chronic and subjective in nature, or to have waxing and waning courses such that a parent or patient might easily be fooled into assigning a causal relationship between a bogus intervention and a clinical improvement....