Tag: misinformation

Turbo cancer?

Dr. William Makis and “turbo cancer”: Falsely blaming COVID-19 vaccines for cancer

A prominent oncologist and cancer biologist, Wafik El-Deiry, recently amplified claims that COVID-19 vaccines cause "turbo cancer," wanting a "civil discourse about science and actual answers that are missing." Unfortunately, calls for "civil discourse" by an eminent oncologist about unfounded claims only lends undeserved credibility to them. So, once more into the fray...

/ October 2, 2023

Health misinformation now has powerful allies

Misinformation and conspiracy theories about health had long been a growing problem before the pandemic, but it took COVID-19 to get the government and researchers to take it seriously. Now, a new report in The Washington Post adds to previous reporting from multiple sources describing how allies of misinformation—and not just health misinformation—are striking back under the guise of defending "free speech."

/ September 25, 2023

The Grand Debunk of the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down” (part 5/10)

The fifth installment in the grand debunk the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down”: Chapter 5.

/ September 7, 2023
Bacterial pneumonia

The COVID-as-bacterial-pneumonia conspiracy theory rises again

In yet another example of everything hold being new again, antivaxxers have resurrected the claim that deaths due to COVID-19 are actually due to bacterial pneumonia, just as antivaxxers used to say the same thing about influenza deaths. It is, of course, another case of confusing cause and effect in order to obfuscate.

/ September 4, 2023

Examining COVID-19 misinformation propagated by US physicians

A new paper documents COVID-19 medical misinformation shared by US physicians on social media

/ August 17, 2023

The Grand Debunk of the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down” (part 4/10)

The debunking resumes with the fourth installment in debunking the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down”: Chapter 4, “Epidemiology 101," in which the antivax authors put a biased spin on basic concepts in epidemiology as a lead-in to their obviously intended purpose of claiming that all the studies finding vaccines to be safe and effective should be discounted.

/ August 10, 2023

The Grand Debunk of the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down” (part 3/10)

The third installment in debunking the antivaxxer book “Turtles All the Way Down”: Chapter 3, “Deficient by Design: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)”.

/ July 25, 2023
Photo by Savvas Kalimeris on Unsplash

Voices in the Vacuum

The failure of the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator to, well, coordinate a response to COVID-19 misinformation has left physicians to fight the uphill battle on their own.

/ May 30, 2023
Aseem Malhotra

Unsafe and Ineffective: Aseem Malhotra

British consulting cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra has become the latest darling of the COVID-19 minimization and antivaccine movement in the UK. Previously known for anti-statin views and advocacy of the Pioppi diet who pivoted to more dangerous misinformation during the pandemic.

/ May 21, 2023

Quack Quack

Joe Schwarcz's new book Quack Quack is an informative and entertaining look at quackery and pseudoscience past and present. A delightful read.

/ January 3, 2023