Tag: COVID contrarian

How the DMED works

Antivaxxers misuse the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database to demonize COVID-19 vaccines

Over the last couple of weeks, a claim that the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) shows that COVID-19 vaccines have caused a massive increase in cancer, neurological, and cardiovascular diseases in military personnel has gone viral. A closer look shows that the increases are almost certainly spurious and due to underreporting in previous years.

/ February 7, 2022
Amazon Prime

Mercola and Kennedy sue Sen. Elizabeth Warren for combating their COVID misinformation

Quack tycoon Joseph Mercola and anti-vaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren claiming she violated their First Amendment rights when she complained that Amazon was peddling COVID misinformation, citing Mercola’s recent misinformation-filled book on COVID as an example.

/ January 27, 2022
Brownstone Institute

The “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration” promotes antivaccine misinformation

The signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration and its "spiritual child" the Brownstone Institute, swear up and down that they are not anttivaccine. If that's so, why are Brownstone-affiliated academics spreading antivaccine misinformation in Uganda?

/ January 24, 2022
Rubber Duck quack

Why are physicians threatened by efforts to report doctors to their state medical board for COVID-19 misinformation?

It's not "cancel culture" to delicense physicians promoting dangerous misinformation about COVID-19. It's quality control. Why do so many physicians think it is?

/ January 17, 2022
Substack

Substack: Where quacks and antivaxxers all go now

With social media companies like Twitter and Facebook/Meta deplatforming those spreading misinformation, COVID-19 quacks, antivaxxers, and conspiracy theorists are flocking to Substack, where they can monetize their misinformation while Substack profits.

/ January 10, 2022

Tennessee hamstrings medical board fight against COVID misinformation and unproven treatments

A new Tennessee law hampers the state medical board's efforts to rein in COVID misinformation and will make disciplining physicians prescribing unproven COVID treatments impossible until the board goes through cumbersome rule-making procedures, an effort that could outlast the pandemic.

/ December 16, 2021
Carl Sagan

John Ioannidis and the Carl Sagan effect in science communication about COVID-19

We have been critical about John Ioannidis over a number of his statements about the COVID-19 pandemic. Now he's done it again, producing a poor-quality paper whose unwritten assumptions suggest that the Carl Sagan effect, in which scientists are penalized professionally by their peers for becoming popular science communicators, still holds considerable sway in science and medicine.

/ December 13, 2021
Black Oxygen Organics (BOO)

BOO: Or how “magic dirt” became a MLM miracle cure scam for COVID-19

"BOO" stands for Black Oxygen Organics, a "cure" for COVID-19 that got the attention of regulators last week. Basically, it's dirt billed by its believers as "magic dirt" that sells for $110 a bag (plus shipping) through a multilevel marketing sales model. What can this latest COVID cure tell us about the relationship between alternative medicine and COVID-19 denial?

/ December 6, 2021
The BMJ's Facebook logo

What the heck happened to The BMJ?

Last week, The BMJ published an "exposé" by Paul Thacker alleging patient unblinding, data falsification, and other wrongdoing by a company running three sites for the massive clinical trial of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It was a highly biased story embraced by antivaxxers, with a deceptively framed narrative and claims not placed into proper context, leading me to look into the broader...

/ November 8, 2021
Hasidic Jews in Borough Park

Echoes of measles outbreaks in 2019: Antivaxxers are targeting Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn with COVID-19 misinformation

About a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, large measles outbreaks among Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and Rockland County were linked to misinformation targeted to their communities by antivaxxers. History is repeating itself with COVID-19.

/ November 1, 2021