Tag: COVID-19 vaccine
How antivaxxers laid the groundwork to blame COVID-19 vaccines for Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest
Right after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed from a cardiac arrest after a tackle and was resuscitated on the field, antivaxxers immediately pounced, blaming COVID-19 vaccines even as CPR was still continuing. That's because antivaxxers had "primed the pump" over more than a year with stories of young athletes who had supposedly "died suddenly." (Warning: This one's long, even by Gorski...
Was 2022 the “year of the gaslighter” with respect to COVID-19?
"Gaslighting" is a term that refers to the manipulation of someone in order to lead them to question their own reality and even sanity. Last month, a COVID-19 minimizer and antivaxxer, C. J. Hopkins, declared 2022 the "year of the gaslighter," revealing yet again that it's always projection with science denying propagandists. Unfortunately, 2023 looks to hold a lot more of the...
It Will Take More Than “Courage” to Restore Public Trust in Medicine
Judah Kreinbrook, a first year medical student, responds to a post on Sensible Medicine by a medical student that exaggerated the risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 vaccines while expressing anger at how trust in medicine has been undermined. Having been raised by a family steeped in antivaccine views, Kreinbrook invokes his journey to SBM to gently correct his fellow medical student and...
Ron Johnson’s “vaccine round table” does little to actually help patients.
Sen. Ron Johnson held a roundtable discussion earlier this month regarding COVID-19 vaccine injuries. It featured a cast of antivax grifter and typical antivax talking points that we've come to know since the pandemic hit. This antivax propaganda exercise helps no one other than the antivaccine movement.
Do COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer”?
Over the last several months, antivaxxers have been claiming that COVID-19 vaccines cause "turbo cancer", cancers (or cancer recurrences) of a particularly aggressive and fast-growing variety diagnosed in younger and younger patients. "Turbo cancer" is not a thing, and the evidence cited is as weak as any antivax "evidence", including anecdotes and misinterpretation of epidemiology.
A clot too far: An embalmer dissects antivax misinformation about blood clots in Died Suddenly
Two weeks ago, COVID-19 conspiracy theorist Stew Peters released an antivax pseudodocumentary, Died Suddenly, whose main claim is that COVID-19 vaccines cause clots that have caused a massive wave of people to "die suddenly". Key to its narrative are embalmers claiming that they are seeing more clots in the bodies they are embalming than ever before. SBM has recruited Benjamin Schmidt, an...
Died Suddenly: A tsunami of antivax misinformation and conspiracy theories
Everything old is new again when it comes to antivax tropes. Stew Peters' antivax pseudodocumentary Died Suddenly resurrects the old antivax conspiracy that vaccines kill, the plan being to cause “depopulation” that will allow “global elites” to control the world. Dr. Gorski watched the whole movie so that you don't have to.
The Aseem Malhotra lecture isn’t what you think it is
In November 2022, Dr. Aseem Malhotra gave a lecture that was more about advancing a narrative than explaining the science.
What does “antivaccine” really mean since the pandemic hit?
We frequently use terms like “antivaccine,” “antivax,” and “antivaxxers.” Critics think it’s a “gotcha” to ask how we define “antivax” or to accuse us of reflexively label "questioning" of vaccines as "antivax." It's not. There are gray areas, but not so gray that the word is never appropriate. Has anything changed since I first tried to define "antivaccine" in 2010? The answer:...
The appeal of being a medical “apostate”
There has long been a huge appeal in medicine that derives from being an "apostate". Since COVID-19 hit, apostasy has become like a drug among too many doctors, and social media has amplified the popularity of "medical apostates" beyond anything I've seen previously.