Tag: COVID-19

Dr. Lucy McBride: “As physicians, dispensing false hope is dangerous & unethical.”

The many sheltered physicians like Dr. Lucy McBride who confidently said herd immunity was at hand and fear of COVID was pathological are the last people who should be sanctimoniously sermonizing about the importance of trust in medicine.

/ January 12, 2024
Peter McCullough shilling for The Wellness Company

The Wellness Company: How antivaccine grift becomes plain old quackery

The Wellness Company, promoted by Dr. Peter McCullough, is the product of a trend in which antivax doctors have predictably become just quacks. At least in this case, there is an amusing quack fight at the heart of it all.

/ January 8, 2024
Frameshift mutation

Do mRNA vaccines produce harmful “junk proteins” that “gunk up” the cell and cause unintended “off-target” immune responses?

A new study is making the rounds in the antivax crankosphere. The study found that the modified mRNA used in the Pfizer vaccine can cause a frame shift (to be explained) that results in the production of proteins besides the intended spike protein. The findings are, as you probably guessed, a big nothingburger compared to how they are being spun.

/ December 11, 2023
Steve Kirsch ad

Steve Kirsch’s “mother of all revelations” about the “deadliness” of COVID-19 vaccines goes poof

On Thursday, Steve Kirsch gave his long-hyped talk about "record-level data" from New Zealand that supposedly demonstrates that COVID-19 vaccines have killed more than 10 million people worldwide. His "analysis" of illegally obtained data from a "whistleblower" was so ridden with false assumptions and rookie errors that even some antivaxxers couldn't accept it.

/ December 4, 2023
Trust science?

Trust in science and vaccines continues to decline. Why?

Recent evidence shows that public trust in science and vaccines has declined markedly since the pandemic. Why is this, and is there anything we can do about it?

/ November 27, 2023
The BMJ's Facebook logo

What the heck happened to The BMJ? (2023 version)

The BMJ, once a bastion of evidence-based medicine, has become disturbingly susceptible to publishing biased "investigations" that feed antivax narratives. Its latest report on VAERS by Jennifer Block, who in the past has defended Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop and whose history is not one of supporting science, is just another example of this deterioration.

/ November 20, 2023
The Great Barrington Declaration

The Great Barrington Declaration and “natural herd immunity” versus public health three years later

Over the weekend, Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the Brownstone Institute, crowed about how the Great Barrington Declaration and its recommendation of a "natural herd immunity" approach to the pandemic changed everything three years ago. Unfortunately, as the John Snow Project pointed out last week, the "natural herd immunity" approach has done what could be irreparable damage to public health science and, more...

/ November 13, 2023
RFK Jr Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comes home to his antivax roots…again

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote speech at the second annual meeting of his antivax organization, Children's Health Defense. Once again, he demonstrated that not only is he still antivax as hell, but that his proposals are even more bizarre than before. Truly, it was a homecoming for him.

/ November 6, 2023

Study laundering: IPAK, antivax “scientists,” and the return of living dead antivax studies

Antivaxxers don't like it when one of their crappy studies that they somehow managed to sneak into a decent peer-reviewed journal is deservedly retracted, as happened to Mark Skidmore's paper that estimated that 278K people might have died from COVID-19 vaccines. Fortunately for Skidmore and others, there exist fake journals that will launder their study by republishing it so that antivaxxers can...

/ October 30, 2023
COVID-19 vaccination

COVID-19 Vaccination and Factors Contributing to Vaccine Refusal

An examination of COVID-19 vaccine refusal in Hong Kong suggests that fostering trust in health authorities, boosting confidence in vaccines, and combating misinformation are all necessary as we prepare for the next pandemic.

/ October 26, 2023