Tag: COVID-19

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.

/ April 1, 2021

The Origins of SARS-CoV-2

The joint WHO-China investigation report concludes that a lab origin for COVID-19 is "extremely unlikely" but doubts remain.

/ March 31, 2021
John Ioannidis with Laura Ingraham on Fox News

What the heck happened to John Ioannidis?

John Ioannidis is one of the most published and influential scientists in the world, someone whose skewering of bad medical research we at SBM have frequently lauded over the years. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Since then, Prof. Ioannidis has been publishing dubious studies that minimize the dangers of the coronavirus, shown up in the media to decry "lockdowns," and, most recently,...

/ March 29, 2021

COVID-19 vaccination and screening mammography

Reports of enlarged lymph nodes under the arm after COVID-19 vaccination have led doctors to tweak mammography guidelines. Antivaxxers, unsurprisingly, have tried to weaponize this observation to spread fear and confusion about these vaccines.

/ March 22, 2021

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!

/ March 18, 2021

Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Safety

Reports of blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are very likely just background events.

/ March 17, 2021

The Brownstein protocol is not a proven treatment for COVID-19

Dr. David Brownstein is a "holistic" physician who practices in Dr. Gorski's neck of the woods. Unfortunately, he just wrote a book promoting an unproven protocol involving vitamins, nebulized hydrogen peroxide and iodine, and intravenous ozone to treat COVID-19. There is no evidence that his protocol works, other than a very poor quality case series.

/ March 15, 2021
COVID-19 vs. FDA and CDC

State legislatures consider bills prohibiting COVID-19 vaccination mandates and other public health measures

Bills seek to prevent the states and private employers from mandating COVID-19 vaccines and other pandemic mitigation measures. Some proposed legislation would severely handicap public health officials in combating future health emergencies.

/ March 11, 2021

COVID Vaccines Probably Prevent Spread

The evidence is preliminary, but it looks like the COVID vaccines do reduce the risk of spread of SARS-CoV-2.

/ March 10, 2021
Central Dogma of Molecular Biology

Antivaxxers misrepresent a study to falsely claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer

The latest antivaccine propaganda claims that a 2018 research paper published by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center shows that the RNA in the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines can cause cancer. As usual, it's a complete misapplication of a cherry picked study grounded in a lack of understanding of molecular biology. Same as it ever was.

/ March 8, 2021